


Once upon a time

by onkoona



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Time machine, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onkoona/pseuds/onkoona
Summary: Suppose, just suppose, that Hikaru had access to a time machine...(soft yaoi, SxH) This story is complete (13 chapters)





	1. Part 1

_Part 1_

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Hikaru - 23 years old, ranking Go Pro and repeated winner of the Juudan and Gosei Titles - found himself, dressed up in silk robes and wearing a ridiculously tall hat, squatting behind a bush in the dead of night. The full moonlight intermittently cast its rays over the ancient landscape of trees and lake and its reeded shore.

Hikaru knew the day was right, but not how long he'd have to wait, so he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, wincing at both the twinge in either leg and the noise the move produced, which disturbed some of the night life into action. As all became quiet again, Hikaru went back to letting his emotions swing between elated anticipation and extreme annoyance. Anticipation of what might be accomplished this night and annoyance at himself, for he was half-way sure he had been completely had and been conned out of a very large sum of money.

It had all started when he'd been mistaken about a lecturing date and had shown up at Fussa Town Hall one week early. He was pretty quick to notice that his Go lecture was not the announced talk of that night, but rather a scientific lecture about time travel, of all things! Checking with the management put the fault clearly in Hikaru's own hands; he had written up the date a week too early, had never checked afterwards and like an automaton had gone that night to wherever his diary commanded he should go.

The problem was quickly fixed; he noted the date of the week after in his diary and texted Waya to cancel the planned bowling outing of that night. Waya was neither surprised nor upset; he knew Hikaru long enough to know that sometimes Hikaru's mind would wander. It was altogether a good thing that Hikaru had been a week too early instead of too late; he really would be in trouble with the Go Institute if he missed yet another lecturing date.

So, with all schedule errors fixed, that left Hikaru in Fussa Town at 8:27 pm with nothing to do and nothing but a long boring hour and a half on the train back home - with nothing to do there either - to look forward too. He figured even if he started back now, by the time he'd arrive at the Touya Go club, most everybody worth playing would have gone home. And there was the rather good smell that the ramen vendor at the Town Hall was producing to consider.

It wasn't too much later that Hikaru found himself sitting all the way at the back of the hall - together with no few others - discretely slurping his ramen and listening to the science presentation.

And that had been the beginning of everything.

OOOO

The moment it got through Hikaru's ramen-stuffed head that the talk was not just about the theory of time travel but that the speaker implied that they had **actually** time traveled, right before the end of the presentation, that Hikaru's interest suddenly went into overdrive, while that of everybody else waned considerably.

Even more credulity was lost by the crowd when the speaker explained that the time travel theory itself, while making the actual travel possible, at the same time made proving that time travel had occurred impossible. This last bit of information Hikaru had serious trouble with; he had always know he'd never be a science buff to begin wit, and he knew that dropping out of High School at age 15 would not have helped matters any, so the fact that the speaker's statements seemed incomprehensible to Hikaru was not a big surprise.

What he did know was that he'd be damned if he'd let this chance slip by. Time travel! Actual working time travel! It was the answer to the unsolvable problem that had burdened him since he had been 14 years old. Sai. He could get back Sai. Even if it was a remote chance, he'd take it; Sai, he just meant that much to Hikaru, even now.

Hikaru hadn't realized until he had been about 16 and Sai had been gone some two years that he had been in love with the Heian ghost for years. Ever since Sai's disappearance Hikaru had dreamt of him frequently. Oh, that first dream, that had been different; it had felt very different. But the dreams after that were normal dreams; well, as normal as dreams can be anyway.

At first he just dreamed of all the things they'd done together; play Go, walk around town, go to school, go to Insei class, the Go exam, and loads more. But gradually, so gradually it took a while for Hikaru to notice, the dreams would just be about the two of them together, just the closeness of it, not so much the things they did. And then after a while Hikaru found himself having very sweet dreams of the both of them looking into each other's eyes and floating in a sea of clouds or sometimes masses of purple-black hair and the softest white silk.

When awake, Hikaru had been slightly revolted at the sticky sweetness of those dreams, but he couldn't deny that the residual emotions from them made him feel the lack of his friend more than ever.

It was not too soon after that Hikaru had started to deal with the physical aspects of his nightly 'sweet dreams'; he suddenly found he needed to change his sheets a lot more often!

Realizing he was in love with the ghost at that point was even easy, even for a lame brain like Hikaru. He really could kick himself that he had not seen it sooner. A 16 year old virgin, for goodness sake! Well, no, that was not fair; he was sure there were plenty of 16 virgin boys out there, but not so many that had not even lusted after a girl (or boy) before. No, he had to be the one who fell for a dead man. Hopeless. Utterly hopeless.

He felt such a fool that he'd never told Sai how he'd felt. Oh, fair enough again; at 14 he really hadn't know that he'd fallen in love with Sai, but he could have been nicer, less of a brat! But what was done, was done. And for years Hikaru played Go to show the world his Sai, and the rest of the time he dreamed of him at night and reminisced about their time together in the day time.

He had tried to get over his grief, he really had. He had gone to a grief counsellor who had advised him to write all his feelings down. Hikaru didn't feel he had any writing ability, and had opted to write out as many of the games he had played against Sai as he could remember. He then continued with any and all games that Sai had played with Hikaru placing the stones. It had helped ease his heart a bit, a solid record of Sai's genius, but it didn't make the longing go away.

So Hikaru had resolved to live on with the bleeding of the Sai shaped hole in his heart. There really had been nothing else to do. Except perhaps... But no, he did feel that Sai would be disappointed in him if he showed up in heaven too soon.

OOOO

Once the lecture was over, Hikaru started off by cornering the mousy looking scientist speaker as the man was putting away his laptop. He bombarded the man with questions, quite a few sounding less than bright, even to his own ears. Once the man had backed so far backwards that he hit the wall, Hikaru asked him to explain again how that 'can't prove it'-thing exactly worked. The poor man kept spluttering and using his laptop as a shield against the young Go Pro, trying to get out from under. Hikaru was having none of it; he notched up the stakes and started demanding a time trip. At this point the scientist's burly assistant drew Hikaru's attention by tugging on his sleeve.

'You want to take a trip through time?' the assistant asked.

Hikaru let go of the professor and took a step backwards. 'Yeah. If it's possible,' he said slowly.

'Oh, it's possible all right,' the man drawled.

OOOO

It took Hikaru a week of hard thinking, interspersed with very frequent calls to Kanzou-sensei - who turned out to be the real brain of the outfit, not a lowly assistant at all - for clarification, before Hikaru finally started to understand the problem with time travel.

Kanzou-sensei explained - and the speaker that night had said it also, even if it had gone way over Hikaru's head at the time - that they had undertaken several time travel trips in order to prove their research was worthy of funding by the government. Their results were always the same; mission successful, but the proof couldn't be produced.

For example: they had gone back to the 13th century and had stolen the 'Nendo' sword from Master Craftsman and Priest Gorou Masamune before it was famous for being used in the hands of a senior member of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Only to find, upon arriving home, that now history had the 'Honjo' blade listed as the famous sword.

They had tried gathering different types of historically significant items, from many different periods, but each time when they came home history recorded some other item had been used instead. The Time Team, as they called themselves, had seen first the Japanese government, then company after company turn down their pleas for funding. They all cited the same reason, even if the wording differed: a difference that makes no difference IS no difference.

_No, difference_ , 'ey? So Hikaru asked the - to him the most - obvious question: what about taking a human out of his own time?

OOOO

And so Hikaru squatted, dressed like character from a Noh play, in the dead of a chilly October night, in the year Kantou 8 of the Traditional Japanese calendar, also known as 1012 CE in the modern world, one thousand years exactly into the past, by a marshy lakeside with mosquitoes buzzing all around, and his leg was falling asleep on him, darn it!

This was the culmination of the three previous trips in which the Time Team and Hikaru had pinpointed the exact date on which Sai had originally committed suicide. While Hikaru had remembered himself as being an insensitive little brat, he had had a great capacity for memory even back then - that possibly being one of the reasons why he'd done so well in Go. Of course now that he was 23 he still had that ability, but apart from using it in Go, he had lost the interest in using it to recall events in his current life.

His childhood memories had given them a place to start; Sai had mentioned the notable Ladies of his time: Sei Shounagon and Murasaki Shikibu, both of whom History remembered and both of whom had been at the emperor's court from around 1000-1010. So the first three trips had been to times around those dates, narrowing down the date of that fateful game and the gruesome location of where Sai's remains were found many days later. This fourth trip was 'the Pick-Up' and would, hopefully, prevent there ever being any remains.

Hikaru had not told the Time Team how he knew there once existed a man called Fujiwara no Sai, Go Tutor to the Emperor, who was disgraced and committed suicide and whom no modern or ancient history book had ever mentioned. And after the Go Pro had pointedly ignored the first three times Kanzou-sensei asked, the subject was dropped altogether. Maybe also in light of the large sums of money Hikaru was shelling out.

Four trips at five million yen* a pop. Now that was no peanuts! It was a very good thing that Hikaru had managed to claim and keep both his titles these last few years. 'Cause this little joke was blowing a huge hole in his funds! But if he got Sai back for it, it would be all worth it, he felt sure.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO

*5 million yen = about $62,500


	2. Part 2

_Part 2_

OOOO

The night got darker and darker and was only disturbed by owls hooting and Hikaru's restless shifting. Behind him, hidden from view a projected holographic image and some real tree branches, was the Time Craft. Even though it was genuinely invincible, Hikaru knew exactly where it was and more importantly, where its open door was. All he had to do was lure Sai close enough so he could nab him. To that end they had set up the perfect lure; a holographic image of a Goban, complete with Goke on top, was set up up to appear the moment Hikaru pressed the remote button on his belt.

There had been long discussions on how 'Operation Pick-Up' was to go down. That and many practice sessions. They had chosen to purchase Hikaru's clothing in the Heian Period - which had been very expensive - and had tried and failed to get a period Goban. Kanzou-sensei pointblank refused to bring one from 2012, even if it was as old a Goban as they could lay their hands on. The sensei was apparently worried of what might happen to the time line if they lost the Goban back in time, as the Time Team had not done any experiments on that possibility yet. So they opted to use a holographic Goban instead, projected from the Time Craft. It turned out to be one of the cheapest items on the bill, much to Hikaru's relief.

OOOO

Yet another owl hooted and a twig snapped, making Hikaru groan with boredom; _com' on already_! Then another twig crackled and another. Hikaru hunkered down a little more as he realized that the twigs were being snapped in a rhythm akin to walking. 'Places everyone,' he could hear whispered over his ear bud.

Then suddenly the clouds parted and the moon shone down at its brightest and a white garbed figure with a tall black hat came into the clearing between Hikaru and the marsh. The figure walked backwards onto the scene, his face turned away from Hikaru and up at the moon, hair streaming behind him as a soft wind picked at the strands. Hikaru was mesmerized at the sight; even from the back he had no doubt; this was his Sai.

'Sai!' he couldn't help but call out. 'Operation Pick-Up' called for Hikaru to go no further away from the Time Craft than he was now, but it took all his will power not to run to Sai once the Heian noble's face came into view.

Never in his ghostly existence had Sai looked like that; his face was covered in smudges and tears, the hair around his face had escaped its bow at the back and was lank and messy, his Kariginu** was also dirty and undone and his hat askew. But what shocked Hikaru most was how thin Sai's face was and how much pain he could see in this eyes.

As Sai took in the stranger that Hikaru was to him, Hikaru could see surprise, shock and no little fear enter the near-purple orbs.

'Who...?' Sai's voice was soft, almost inaudible, his eyes trained on Hikaru.

Hikaru quickly recovered himself and forced his mind back to the operation's plan; lure Sai closer. He pressed the button on his belt and the Goban appeared to his left, right in front of the invisible door to the Time Craft. He swiped his long sleeved left arm and, bowing low, he said the pre-rehearsed line, 'Good even, good Sirrah, wilt thou do me the honor of playing a round with me?' Hikaru grimaced as he said it, but had been assured by Kanzou-sensei that it was all correct.

When no movement was forthcoming, Hikaru lifted his head and saw that Sai had turned a little ways towards the Goban, his eyes as wide as Hikaru had ever seen them, both his sleeve-covered hands were held before his open mouth.

'A round?' came the soft whisper from behind the sleeves and the sound seemed to Hikaru full of hope and wonder.

'To be sure.' Hikaru felt safe to use this pre-rehearsed phrase to coax Sai on. He moved a little closer to the Goban and was gratified that Sai moved forward also, his eyes fixed on the glowing board. Just one more step.

Then the moon light was whisked away by an over flying cloud and with it went the hope in Sai's eyes as he stopped advancing and gazed back up to Hikaru. A sadness flooded the purple gaze and he took a small step backwards and then another. Tear started rolling down his dirty face once more as Sai slowly shook his head.

_No!_  
Hikaru could tell Sai was not going to fall for his lure and decided to throw caution to the wind. He lunged forward and grabbed the distraught noble around the waist, almost drowning in a sea of silk, before bodily dragging him the few meters to the Time Craft. At fist Sai had been stunned by the move, but by the time Hikaru was manhandling him through the door of the Craft, Sai had started to struggle weakly.

It was to no avail; while Hikaru had never been the tallest in any group of males, he was stout. He was strong enough when he had to be, and certainly stronger than one tired thin Heian noble. For thin Sai truly was; Hikaru could feel it just by holding him like this. Sai also smelled strongly of stale incense and even staler human male. If it wasn't for the fact that Hikaru had no intention of ever letting Sai go no matter what, he might have let go because of the smell. Hikaru just steeled himself to ignore it and he speedily manhandled Sai into one of the passenger seats of the Craft, strapping him down tightly while the Craft's engine started revving up.

OOOO

Once Hikaru had strapped himself in and the Craft started its odd balancing act that indicated time travel, he looked back over at Sai sitting next to him. The Heian noble had pulled up his legs, put his head on his knees and had wrapped his arms around himself, so that only the back of his head was showing. He wasn't wearing his hat and Hikaru looked about for it in two quick motions of his head, just as the Craft stopped moving.

The inside of the Time Craft was so small; a big back hat would have been quite conspicuous. It was not in the craft. It was then that Hikaru noticed that Sai was only wearing one shoe. A quick check revealed that it too was not in the craft. Ah well, Hikaru guessed that the same history that had not bothered to record the finding of Sai's body the first time around would now likely not be recording the finding of his hat and single shoe either.

Hikaru looked over the bundled up Sai and let out a sigh of relief; Sai was here with him and a missing hat and shoe did not detract from that in any way. He reached out a hand and touched one silk- swaddled shoulder. It twitched under his arm and felt warm. Hikaru's heart hammered; Sai was really real. As in could be touched real. As in breathing, as in living, as in... looking up at him?

Hikaru met the shocked purple gaze and smiled ruefully. He shrugged his shoulders in a what-can-I-say kinda gesture when fear started to enter Sai's gaze and his brow furrowed. Sai pointedly looked down at where Hikaru was touching him and Hikaru let his hand drop.

'Hey, no harm meant,' he said, hoping to sound friendly. And as he looked back at Sai, he found those rounded eyes once more gazing at him in fear and wonder.

'Art... Art thou the Kami?' came the softest of whispers. _Kami?_ Did Sai think Hikaru was a god?

'What? No! Of course not!' Hikaru proclaimed. And he would have said more, if Kanzou hadn't interrupted by announcing: ''Operation Pick-Up' is now complete. ALL ASHORE!'

It made Sai jump in his seat, the seat belt knocking him back into the chair with an oomph. Hikaru had to admit it didn't do much for his nerves either. He did spring into action though; he got himself loose and then Sai. he got both of them out of the Craft into the well-lit drafty hangar.

Kanzou-sensei stepped up to them and said, 'Well, that's it for now. I'll ring you later for the debriefing, all right?' Hikaru nodded and made an assenting noise.

He then held on to Sai's arm as if his life depended on it - and maybe it did - as the Time Team got busy with the breakdown all around them. The Craft was neatly lifted up by a small forklift truck and driven inside a huge lorry, forklift and all. Then cables were gathered and the control modules that had been scattered about the hangar were put into boxes that went into the lorry as well. A bright red carry-all was dropped at Hikaru's feet and one of the technicians helped Hikaru taking off his belt. Once all big items were gone, the lorry's ramp was raised and with a medium puff of exhaust smoke the vehicle roared into motion, away from Hikaru and Sai.

Those of the team that had not gotten the cabin of the lorry piled some luggage and themselves into the two cars that stood to the side, speeding off after the lorry. The whole operation took no more that 3 minutes.

It left Hikaru and Sai as the only occupants of the well-lit hangar. The sudden silence was deafening at first. Then Hikaru felt Sai drop down by his side, almost knocking him over as Hikaru still had been holding on the Sai's upper arm. As the arm escaped his grasp, for a moment Hikaru thought that Sai had fainted and looked down in a near panic.

'Thou art a Kami! Or as good as one!' Sai exclaimed, sitting on his knees in a pool of dirty silk on the rough concrete floor, pulling on Hikaru's sleeve urgently.

'Oh, how wondrous a thing that one such as me may reside in a space such as thine!' Sai gestated wildly with his free arm, making his grubby white sleeve dance. 'With but one gesture, thou, my Liege, commandest the greatest beast to yield and take flight into a swallowing cave! Oh, such wonders have I ne'er spied! Oh...' This is where Hikaru put a finger in front of the emoting noble.

'That's enough,' he said and mercifully Sai fell silent.

Hikaru's head was oddly spinning; he had trouble following Sai's speech, probably he was still confused from the time traveling: yes, that must be it. Now that Sai had stopped talking, Hikaru found he could think again. Uh, first order of business; go home. Okay, he could do that.

He cast about for the car he had planned to rent, but it wasn't there. Oh, must have forgotten to rent it, actually. Well, never mind, he thought as he flipped open his mobile and called up 'taxi' from its address menu. As he placed the call, he motioned Sai up from the ground; then he took Sai's hand in his right and the red bag in his left hand and headed outside, pulling the Heian noble along.

Outside it was an overcast autumn day, the same in fact as it had been when Hikaru had left on this last time trip. The weather was quite warm for the time of year and Hikaru stopped to take the time to take off his loose-hanging Heian clothing; without a belt it had pretty much turned into strips of cloth hanging off his shoulders. These stupid Heian people couldn't even design a piece of clothing that made any sense! He wore a t-shirt underneath and left the Hakama on. He zipped open the bag, stuffing the silk outfit inside.

When he was finished, he spied Sai sitting down on the pavement, both sleeves in front of his mouth, looking around with eyes the size of saucers. Hikaru looked around; trying to discern what could be so interesting. He couldn't see anything but warehouses and hangars made of corrugated iron and weathered concrete; deadly dull, really.

Well, no time to waste; the cab would be at the gate soon. Hikaru motioned Sai up and grabbed his hand again and started walking briskly towards the gate. After he felt Sai stumble behind him, he slowed down. He didn't want to hurt his friend, but he also didn't want miss the taxi. He slowed down more as Sai wobbled again. Hikaru had not ever been in a situation like this; he had never had had a friend that he had needed - or felt bothered - to slow down for. Sai, when he had been a ghost, had certainly not needed it. Oddly it threw him for a loop; he suddenly realized nothing would ever be the same again now he had this living Sai.

Hikaru stopped walking so suddenly that Sai ran fully into his back. Hikaru turned around so fast that Sai didn't even get the chance to fall down, but was instead held up by both his upper arms. This move brought Sai's face quite close to Hikaru's - Sai was maybe an inch or two taller than Hikaru, so Hikaru had to look up - pretty much as Hikaru had intended.

'My liege?' Sai stammered as Hikaru looked into his dark purple eyes.

Hikaru hadn't had anything planned with this move, other than taking a closer look at this living Sai. And so, look he did. Hikaru concluded that Sai looked a bit better in broad daylight than he had in the moonlight; his face was still dirty and definitely thinner than Hikaru had ever seen him. But the eyes held a lot less of despair and that pleased Hikaru enormously. Sai's eyes had always been a window to his soul - when he wasn't playing Go - Hikaru remembered it well.

Satisfied at what he had seen, Hikaru pushed Sai back onto his own feet, letting go of his arms, but grasping him by the hand again.

'Let's go,' he said and this time he walked at a pace that Sai could follow easily.

OOOO

Getting Sai home in a taxi was not uneventful. As the taxi had driven up to them at the gate and Hikaru opened the passenger door, Sai had not only sat down on the curve, but had bowed down deeply.

'My liege, may I speak?' he had asked.

'Of course you may!' Hikaru had groused, being bewildered by the question; Sai had had no problems talking before.

Sai sat up and said, 'Oh, my Lord, commander of great roaring beasts, whither thou goest, thither I will surely follow, be it into the mouth of lions. And be it foretold that I not return, it is all but right and proper.' He stopped there and Hikaru felt that odd nausea coming back; what the F was he talking about?!

Hikaru took that last thought right back when he saw the fear in his friend's eyes. Eyes that were alternately looking at him and the taxi. Sai was scared of the taxi?

_Great roaring beasts_ ? Sai had said that before, had he meant the Time Craft? _Into the mouth of lions_? Was that meant to be the taxi?

'Oh, no, don't worry!' Hikaru let go of the car door and bent down to grasp both Sai's hands. As he tugged him up and onto his feet he added, 'This is no lion! This is, uh, it's, uh, a chariot! Yes, that's what this is.' He wrapped his arm around Sai's waist, much as he had done in the Heian period, and turned him around so they were both facing the driver's window.

'Are we going or what?' the gruff voice of the cabby came over the half rolled down window from inside the dark cab.

'See? This good man is the, uh, charioteer,' Hikaru added, grimacing at the bad analogy. Ah, it would have to do.

Apparently it did, because after that Sai let himself be bundled inside where Hikaru joined him.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO

**Kariginu = Sai's white garment


	3. Part 3

_Part 3_

OOOO

It was a long 20 minute ride that Hikaru spent being clung to by Sai still dressed in his silks. It seemed it was the speed at which they were going that worried the Heian noble the most, as whenever they slowed down and stopped for some traffic light, Sai would look out the window with much interest. Understandable, Hikaru had to admit, Sai being from a time when the fastest mode of transport was a horse. And Hikaru wasn't at all sure Sai actually had ever been **on** a horse.

Hikaru tried to keep his friend's mind off the speed by asking him about horses, but he got such a flood gate of unfamiliar words back he quickly made Sai stop talking. That Sai had stopped talking after just one rude command from Hikaru, was something Hikaru at first was very relieved about, but then on second thought, that was not how Sai the ghost would have reacted, was it? Something was definitely off. If only he could understand what Sai said so he could ask him! And if only Hikaru wasn't going to be getting that size 10 headache that was threatening behind his eyes!

OOOO

Hikaru let them into his flat after a not uneventful ride up the elevator. He knew he was quite rudely pushing Sai into the one room flat while he flicked on the overheads and dumped the bag and his keys in the corner next to the door. The sudden bright light in a room that had been well into twilight made Hikaru's headache flare up, and he could feel a bad case of grumpiness coming on.

After Hikaru had toed off his boots, he turned fully into the room, where he could see that his current mood had not gone unnoticed by Sai, who was kneeling on the laminate floor and had bowed over so deep that his forehead almost touched the floor. A random thought of, _how does he do that? Sit on his legs and then get his head down that far?_ _Man, he must be made of rubber!_ flooded Hikaru's brain.

He shook off the thought and said, 'You can sit up now.' Sai took his time lifting his head and Hikaru flopped down on his couch in the meantime, crossing his legs at the ankle. Sai's head came up enough so that he could look up at Hikaru's face.

'My Liege?' Sai whispered, eyes wide with a myriad of emotions. Arg! Did he have to use that word again? Hikaru sat up from his sprawl and demanded, 'Why do you call me that?'

Sai visibly started and Hikaru cursed his own tone; too harsh, poor guy must be scared to death right now! But then he saw that all was not lost when a sprig of determination entered the ancient face and Sai spoke again.

'Art thou not my liege that hath ta'en me from my sorrow's home, afore Lethe's shroud could rest upon my head? Art thou not my liege that by most rapid method, hath brought me thither, to this palace, now flooded with the sun's own rays at your command?'

Hikaru grabbed his head with both hands as a stab of pure agony went through it. 'Stop speaking!' he pleaded.

As silence fell the pain gradually ebbed away and Hikaru carefully let his arms down and opened his eyes. In the modern setting of his mundane flat, the incongruous figure of a Heian noble sbowed again, with his forehead back to touching the floor. Hikaru could see that Sai was trembling a bit. Damn, this is not going to work! he thought.

But it had to work. Hikaru hadn't gone through all that trouble and not to mention great expense to fail now. And there was just no way in H that he was ever losing Sai again!

Hikaru looked at the grubby hatless figure again. He might not look much like the Sai Hikaru had know - nor talk like him! - but jeepers; this** was** Sai. The original Sai. The Sai that had been about to kill himself 'cause he wouldn't be able to play Go any more, just before Hikaru nabbed him.

Go. Go had always been Sai's reason for living, for existing, when he had been a ghost. Yes, Sai had always been able to communicate through Go.

Hikaru quickly dived under his bed and pulled out the old Goban and the Goke. 'Let's play!' he cheered, pushing the heavy board towards the still bowing Sai.

Sai came up out of the bow and brought one sleeve up to his mouth. 'G-go?' he stammered and then pressed the sleeve against his mouth in shock. Hikaru was puzzled for a moment, then he realized; he had ordered Sai to keep quiet and Sai had 'disobeyed'.

Hikaru smiled as reassuringly as he could and confirmed, 'Yes, Go. Let's play,' he added as he adjusted the angle of the board to sit properly in front of the dishevelled noble. He seated himself tailor fashion and lifted a Goke off the board.

'Nigiri,' he commanded and Sai dropped his hand from his mouth to take the remaining Goke off the board. Hikaru waited until Sai nodded to open his Goke with the white stones inside.

OOOO

As Hikaru placed the first stone after having won black, he was thinking how thrilling it was to be once again playing Sai. He knew had no hope of winning, not even after having won two titles - and holding on to them! - but that was more than okay; Sai was really in Touya Meijin's league, and Hikaru wasn't anywhere near there yet!

Openings were very traditional, even though Hikaru was surprised at Sai's Kosumi response. It was a move that Sai, ghostly Sai, had used when he first started playing through Hikaru and later had used a lot less. But because it was a pretty good response to Hikaru's move, he paid it no more mind until not much later, when Sai seemed to miss using a well known resolution to a standard Joseki gambit and sacrificed the stones instead by playing somewhere else on the board. What was even more startling was that Sai had seemed genuinely surprised when Hikaru's move killed off the undefended stones.

Hikaru's forehead scrunched up more and more as the game progressed. Sai's play certainly did not seem up to par. Oh, it was brilliant enough in some places, but there were noticeable gaps in others. It was oddly reminding Hikaru of something, but he couldn't quite lay his finger on it.

Then Sai abandoned another bog standard Joseki formation and while he actually was ahead, too! And suddenly it clicked in Hikaru's mind; something he had read some years ago, when trying to get an insight into the Heian Period and he had run into an essay on Heian Go Playing. It had said that the Go players in the Heian Period had been so 'refined' - Hikaru had read 'snobs' between the lines - that they would not battle out a Joseki at all; it was enough that it had been formed. Hikaru had agreed with the writer at the time; it was a dumb way to play the game.

But now he saw it practiced before his eyes and, dumb or not, it was how this Sai played the game. Hikaru quickly glanced up at Sai, who was giving him a questioning look back. He was about to ask his friend about his playing style when his phone started playing "Jingle Bells" and Sai's eyes became saucers again.

Hikaru made a grab for his phone, flipped it open and growled, 'Moshi, moshi,' while still glancing at Sai.

'My liege,' Sai whispered as if unsure if Hikaru was addressing him. Hikaru gave him a little shake of the head while he listened to Kanzou-sensei yelling at him.

Now Hikaru was quite used to people yelling at him; for some reason he was great at rubbing people the wrong way. But he was surprised that it was the sensei that was yelling; the man had only ever been fatherly and decent to Hikaru. And Hikaru had done his best to be polite back, even if he wasn't too forthcoming with information on 'why'.

It took a minute or two for Kanzou-sensei to become coherent. Apparently the money was missing. This surprised Hikaru as he had made four transfers, each one a day before each tip in time, as agreed, and he had carried the confirmation papers with him in his backpack to each event as proof.

He got up to check his bag, taking the phone with him while he felt Sai's wide-eyed gaze following him around the room. He put the phone on the floor as he searched the bag; no papers. He turned to his mini chest of drawers and pulled out his bankbook from the top drawer. He flipped it open and found the page that covered the last set of transfers. His overall balance was ¥200,000***; no surprise there. He traced the list of transfers from the bottom up and found no large sums transferred at all. The last big payment he saw was into his account some weeks ago; his salary. But then he looked again and realized something was very wrong; it was about half the money it should have been. And the name was wrong; where it should have said "Personnel Department, Go Institute, Tokyo" it now said "Personnel Department, Asagohan Shinbun****, Tokyo". Hikaru sat stumped for a moment and then started to reason it out.

If he wasn't paid by the institute, then he wasn't employed by the Institute. He swallowed. Did that mean he wasn't a Go Pro at all?

He quickly groped about the drawer for his 'Go ID' (as the younger pros called it), the official record of his attained _dan_ level and titles. It wasn't there. What was there was a laminated plastic ID card, with a clip and a ribbon, with his own picture on it that said: Shindou, Hikaru. Licensed Photo Reporter, Asagohan Shinbun, Tokyo.

In shock he sat back on his heels, the phone still open on its side, next to him, with Kanzou-sensei's angry voice blaring out of it. Hikaru mulled over the evidence; his money was missing. His job had changed; he was now a reporter? But he remembered being a Go Pro, remembered winning those titles - remembered the many hangovers from the many celebration parties! What the H had happened?

It was then that he became aware that Kanzou-sensei was still screaming from the phone. Slowly he picked up the device.

'Sensei,' he started saying.

'Ah, you're back! You idiot! I had you checked out before I took your commission, you were a successful Go Pro then. Now you are not; explain that to me!'

'Uh, I, uh, checked my bankbook, the money ain't there either,' he stammered.

'I know that, you ninny! Tell me how nabbing a person from 1000 years ago can influence your whole life and nothing else!'

Hikaru swallowed at that and nearly dropped the phone. That was it. Sai. Hikaru turned around by sliding his knees on the laminate and looked at Sai who sat patiently by the Goban, even if he did look scared to death.

Sai. It had been Sai, the ghost, that had set him on his path to Go when he had been only 11 years old. But now Hikaru had taken Sai away from his own time, before he had died. Now Sai would not, had not, could not have been - geez, what is the right tense for this kinda thing? - a Go loving ghost. And he had **not** taught Hikaru's younger self Go. So Hikaru had had different life instead. With a different career. Photo Reporter for the Asagohan Shinbun, the free neighborhood newspaper, oh no.

Of course Hikaru had nothing against the Asagohan Shinbun. He even read it occasionally. It was nice and informative, reporting on local events like openings and festivals and the like. It also had a very comprehensive listing of upcoming events. They even did a decent job of reporting about Go, since the Institute was situated in the neighborhood. But the thought of being one of their reporters, urg. Well, at least he took photos instead of writing...

But not being a successful Go Pro meant he had no big sacks of money he could spend on time trips. But hang on, if he wasn't a successful pro, with titles, and hadn't been taught by a Heian ghost, why would he even want to go back in time and pick up said ghost before he became a ghost? Ouch! Hikaru felt that splitting headache come back on. So where that leave Sai? And where did that leave the demand for money that Kanzou-sensei was screeching at him the phone.

Hikaru tried to use this argument with the sensei, but the man would have none of it. Yes, it was a _paradox_ but since they were both in on it and Hikaru indeed **had** taken 4 time trips, Hikaru still owed him that money. And the man wasn't backing down either.

In the end Hikaru promised he'd get him as much money as he could, as fast as he could. Kanzou-sensei did understand that it was going to take time and he said philosophically, if unhappily, 'time is something that I have in abundance,' before ringing off.

OOOO

Hikaru let his hand drop from his ear, taking the phone with it. He needed to think, he thought. Then he was annoyed with himself for thinking such an inane thought. Really think, you dumb-ass!

'My liege?' came a whisper from Sai's direction, drawing Hikaru's full attention. Okay, let's deal with this first.

'Don't call me that,' he commanded, the words coming out harsher than intended.

'Yes, sir,' was Sai's immediate response before he bowed down again, very narrowly missing the sharp corner of the Goban as his head went down. Hikaru winced at the near miss.

'And stop doing that!' he rapped out. Sai's head came up a little and he asked, 'My l.., uh, sir?'

'Bowing like that, stop it!' Hikaru repeated.

'But, uh, sir! May thy humble servant not feel the happiness of showing thee the level of respect and admiration?'

'Stop talking!' Hikaru's head had started throbbing again at the Heian noble's long winded speech. Well, at least Hikaru had known almost all the words used this time. He was glad that this meant that they could at least communicate. If only he could stop the guy from using such long sentences!

'Sai,' Hikaru started, an idea forming in his head.

'Yes, sir,' Sai acknowledged. He made a move to bow again but apparently the look that Hikaru gave him was enough to stop him.

'Sai, from now on I want you to speak with as few words as possible,' Hikaru said. Hikaru saw his friend's eyes become large again. Well, Hikaru could appreciate that, for a person who talked like this Sai did, being curtailed like this couldn't be easy!

Then Hikaru saw a frown appear of the handsome face and Sai said, 'Wouldst thou I speak not?'

Hikaru had to wrack his brain at the meaning. Damn those old style verbs; Hikaru had never been any good at that sorta thing! Uh, had Sai just asked if Hikaru wanted him to shut up altogether?

'Oh! Uh, no! Of course not! Just not so much, okay? And not so fancy,' he spluttered.

'"Okay"?' Sai repeated tentatively. Oh! Well, that was certainly not a word a Heian noble would know!

'It means that you agree,' Hikaru tried to explain.

'Oh,' Sai started, the puzzled look still on his face. 'My humble self will make, uh, efforts to comply, uh, okay.' Sai looked unhappy at the ending of his phrase; no doubt it was hard to keep all the flowery bits out of it too. Hikaru, though, really appreciated it and told him so and then rounded it off with a bow of his own. When Hikaru's head came back up he realized he'd made an error, 'cause Sai looked mortified.

'What's the matter now?' Hikaru said in exasperation.

'Why sir! Thee must not bow down to one such as me, a mere mortal!' Sai exclaimed.

Oh, that again. Hikaru sighed.

'Listen Sai, I am a "mere mortal" too. Just as you are,' he added.

To this Sai said nothing, but Hikaru could tell the Heian noble was not convinced. With a sigh, Hikaru decided to leave this battle for another day. First there was a game to finish and the mysteries surrounding that to solve.

OOOO

Distracting Sai - and himself - with Go seemed to work like a charm, and they were deeply engrossed back into the game in no time flat.

Now that Hikaru was keeping in mind that this Sai played in a style so old it was actually forgotten, he started to challenge his friend a little. First thing he did was tell him straight off he should finish his Joseki. Sai had looked appalled at the suggestion but had done it consistently from then on.

A little further into the game - which Hikaru was losing now that he could no longer count on those unplayed gambits - Hikaru realized that Sai was still holding back. Ghostly Sai had always been kind to those of players with a very low level. But with good players he had been merciless. Hikaru was getting a little miffed that Sai was maybe regarding him as a low level player. What with having won - and defended! - two titles successfully - if only in a world that didn't seem to exist any more - Hikaru **should** be counted as a 'good player'. Or - dread ran up his spine - had his ability to play ceased to exist along with his titles?

The only way to find that out was to keep playing. He did tell Sai to play stronger, which, after deepening his frown, the Heian noble did.

After some serious tussles on the board and about an hour of play, Hikaru had his answer. He lost from Sai by 4 and a half moku, fully the best he had done against Sai, like ever. His Go felt strong and true and utterly familiar; his Go was as good it had been, he concluded with a great sigh of relief.

'Sir, thou art a great player,' Sai startled Hikaru out of his contemplation of the board. As Hikaru looked up, Sai looked down at the Goban and added, 'Alas, I was trounced quite thoroughly. I've been a most unworthy adversary I fear. I have much to learn, yet.'

Hn? Did Sai think he had lost?

'You won,' Hikaru stated. Sai's head shot up, the confusion plain on his face.

'With the komi rule, you win by 4 and a half moku.'

The confusion turned to shock.

'"Komi rule"?' Sai asked. Oh, that's right! Hikaru had forgotten. Of course this Sai knew nothing of the komi rule, how could he? Not even ghostly Sai had known; it was just too new.

Quickly Hikaru explained the rule and then was oddly shocked when this Sai's response pretty much mimicked exactly the old Sai's response.

'I have gained understanding. I ne'er suffered defeat while playing black, 'tis true.'

'May I humbly ask for another game,' Sai asked, visibly halting a bow right after.

The answer was given by the load rumbling in Hikaru's stomach.

'Nope, food first!' Hikaru said, jumping up from his seated position and bounding into his kitchenette, leaving a startled Sai behind.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO

*** ¥200,000 = about $2,500

****Asagohan Shinbun = Breakfast newspaper

OOOO


	4. Part 4

_Part 4_

OOOO

"Dinner" consisted of sandwiches that Hikaru was very relieved to find in his fridge. Apparently in this version of his life, he still went down to the corner store every few days also, to stock up on sandwiches and fruit drinks. They were a guarantee that he'd have something to eat any time he wanted it and could grab food easily on the way out. The fact that he now had to go out on assignment and not to a Go client wouldn't make any difference. Oh god, he'd have figure out how to do his job soon! Arg!

He distracted himself from the problem by 'serving' dinner. He tore off the plastic wrappers and plunked two sandwiches each on plates and put both plates on the glass coffee table. He went back for a bottle of orange drink, two glasses and as an afterthought grabbed some paper napkins as well. He had a guest now, he really should behave accordingly.

He poured out the fruit drink and set one of the glasses next to the plate nearest Sai, who looked up questioningly. His own he put on the shelf next to the couch. He sat down and retrieved his plate from the table, setting it in his lap. He gave Sai an inviting nod, picked up his own ham and cheese sandwich in both hands and proceeded to bite a great chunk out of it.

All the while Sai had been watching in amazement. But after Hikaru had apparently not choked on his huge bite, Sai attempted to do as invited.

Hikaru nearly spit out his sandwich twice with laughter, just watching Sai trying to eat with those sleeves; it was truly comical! Then he decided not to let the poor guy suffer on and he told him to take off his Kariginu. Sai looked shocked at the suggestion, but Hikaru insisted. Those clothes had to go sooner or later anyway; there was no way Hikaru was hanging out with anyone dressed like that on a daily basis; it had been bad enough before when Sai had been a ghost and no-one but Hikaru could see him, but now he could easily trip over that train! And anyway, the silk may have been fine once, but now it was just dirty, so at the very least it needed to go in the wash.

But at Sai's upset look, Hikaru let him keep his clothes. And also because Sai seemed to have found a solution to the problem by himself; he had folded over the 'cuffs' of his sleeves, picked up the egg sandwich and ate it close to his mouth so the sleeves could not fall back down. Good enough, Hikaru thought.

After the sandwiches and the drinks were gone, Sai immediately asked for another game. Hikaru glanced at the clock; 9:45 pm. He knew he had a lot of research to do before he'd be able to do his job. There was no way he could afford to lose his job now that he had two mouths to feed and owed all that money to the Time Team.

So he figured what the very first question was: when did his job start? As he didn't know, he had to play it safe and assume it would be tomorrow morning, bright and early. That thought made him cringe; he was never much of a morning person.

'Sir?' came a whisper.

'Don't call me that,' Hikaru gave back without thought.

'Uh. What, in my humbleness, may I call you then?' Sai asked. Hikaru looked up at the hint of exasperation in the Heian noble's speech. _Oh, great; now we're both miffed_.

'Call me Hikaru,' was Hikaru's brisk rejoinder. To this Sai smiled and all of Hikaru's thoughts of annoyance towards his friend evaporated; this was what he had wanted to have again!

'Hikaru-sama, wouldst thou condescend to play me again?' Sai ventured. Did he have to use "-sama"? Should he correct that? Nah, not right now; pick your battles, Hikaru thought to himself. So back to the question: would he like to play? Oh yes! But Hikaru knew he needed to get to know his new life and fast! So he declined, sympathizing with the disappointment that was clearly written on the handsome face.

It did bring to mind what Sai was going to be doing while Hikaru was working tonight. Ghostly Sai had spent hours sitting absolutely still while Hikaru had been at school or had done homework. While that was well and good for a ghost, it was not right for a living person! And anyway, Sai had always been happiest doing something Go related, like read Go Weekly and books with Kifu. Hikaru could easily let this Sai read his Go books, after all, he would be able to turn the pages himself now.

In his enthusiasm he turned around on the couch to face his bookcase. And found - apart from his old school books - not a single familiar book. There were a lot of photo books and 'how to take a great picture' kind of books. Also a few slim books on developing writing skills, urg! This was not good; there was just noth-. Hold on, there it is on the lower shelve behind the couch; definitely the Kanji for Go.

Hikaru managed to wedge the book out from behind the couch. "Edo style Go" it said. Perfect! As he flipped open the old fashioned hardcover, the spine creaked with age and disuse. Dust wafted into his face. He flipped through the first few pages to find the date. There on the page opposite the tile page it said (c)1957. Great, a really old book. He was about to close it and pass it over to Sai when he spied some handwriting on the next page: "A fair win I'll admit, Inoue Rintaro." Hey, wasn't that that guy that Gramps beat at Go, way back when? The book is sure old enough. So this was Gramps' book, Hikaru guessed.

Gramps had died a few years ago and in Hikaru's original life he had left him his Go books and his Goban. The Goban that they had just been playing on, Hikaru suddenly realized. He looked at it, to confirm his thought and yes, it was that Goban. Apparently in this reality, Gramps had also left him his Go stuff, even though here Hikaru hadn't become a Pro player. Had he at least played Gramps? He did hope so as he sent a thought of his grandfather up to heaven._ Thank you, Gramps, for providing these things when I need them._

'You read this, while I get some work done,' Hikaru said as passed the book over. Sai solemnly accepted, bowed, opened it reverently and started reading.

OOOO

Hikaru had gotten incredibly lucky; he found simple books on photography, a company book from the Asagohan Shinbun detailing every part of the company, with a extra booklet on the dos and don'ts of photo reporting and a complete job description. In his computer - after he had deduced the password and no, it was not "Fujiwara" - he found that he did most business with his employers by e-mail - on the computer and on his mobile - which he studied at length.

He was very relieved to find that he had the next day off. Apparently he had Wednesdays and Thursdays off, if he wasn't recalled for special events. He started praying he'd not be recalled tomorrow; he needed every second from now on.

OOOO

After some hours of work - and not a peep out of Sai, except the clacking of Go stones on the board - Hikaru decided to call it quits for that night.

It quickly turned out that Hikaru had not for a moment realized that a simple thing like going to bed could cause so many difficulties. He decide to start by getting Sai undressed, but then it became clear that showing him how to use the toilet facilities first was a much higher priority.

Hikaru found he had to teach Sai the simplest things. Not only how to use the modern amenity but also that he should wash his hands after and how to use the soap. Apparently Sai had never seen soap. How can a person have hair like that and not use soap? True, Sai had been smelly when Hikaru had nabbed him - not that Hikaru was much of a clean freak himself - but Hikaru had assumed that that had been because Sai had been wandering around the woods for two days straight. Now he was not so sure.

Next came undressing and showering; it really couldn't be put off any longer. Hikaru turned on the shower for Sai, gave him a towel and left him to it. But when, after 10 minutes, no bathing sounds came out of the small bathroom, he went in the check.

Sai was standing in the fogged up room, looking forlorn. It was not a look that Hikaru liked to see on Sai's face

'What's up?' Hikaru asked.

At the sound of Hikaru's voice, Sai went down on his knees and bowed. 'Hikaru-sama,' he said and then fell silent.

Hikaru looked down at the Heian noble, trying to work out the problem. It was then that he saw that Sai had slipped his arms out of his sleeves as if to get out of his clothing via that route. Did that mean that Sai couldn't undress himself?

Suddenly Hikaru realized that was it. Of course Sai couldn't undress himself; he had been a noble in an Imperial Palace, with servants to do every least little thing for him, at any time of the day or night. As a ghost Sai hadn't had to dress or undress either. Nor wash, nor eat, nor sleep. But this Sai did and the poor guy didn't seem to know how!

Hikaru decided not to make big production out of it. He told Sai to get up and efficiently helped him out of his Heian clothing. It was all held together with belts and ties, some of which had gotten quite tangled, but Hikaru just kept at it until they surrendered to him in the end. He only paused when he was confronted with Sai's underwear.

C'mon Hikaru, what had you expected? Boxers? Briefs? What was staring him in the face was an actual loincloth; a strip of material twisted into a cloth rope with a loop at the end, wrapped around the waist then threaded though the loop at the back, coming down between the legs, where the strip was flattened out to catch the necessary before being draped upwards and tucked into the cloth rope at the waist.

Hikaru had Sai turn around so he could undo the knot on the loop; he did know that that was not the way of removing it, but right now he couldn't quite face what he'd see if he started at the front. And anyway, he didn't want Sai wearing impractical undies like these!

He left Sai with the knot undone and told him to hurry. He quickly got out of the bathroom, taking Sai's pile of silk with him, not in the least to hide is burning face. He busied himself converting the couch to a bed and got out PJs for himself and, uh, what should he get Sai? They wouldn't have had pajamas in the Heian Period, Hikaru felt sure, so what else? A kimono probably. Ah! He still had some Yukata Kimonos from the last few summers. Or he did in the other world any way...

A quick check yielded two cotton Yukata. Hikaru was unsure if these were the same ones he'd gotten originally; his friends had always accused him of having no memory for clothing and that sort of thing. But it really didn't much matter what they looked like, as long as he had some. He picked the one with the big yellow flowers and put it inside the bathroom on the sink, calling out to Sai to wear it, over the sound of the still running shower.

When he came back to the living/bedroom he checked over the place and noticed a glaring omission; a bed for Sai. Hurriedly he grabbed the guest bedding out of his built in wardrobe and spread it out on the floor. Hikaru had never had many guests over, usually only Waya, 'cause Isumi liked to sleep in his own bed.

The thought made Hikaru drop the bedding from suddenly numb fingers. Waya. Isumi. Nase. Even bloody Touya! Would he still know any of them in this reality?

He tripped over the bedding in his haste to get to his phone. Sprawled on his front on the soft quilt he could just reach his phone. Quickly scrolling down his contact list gave him the bad news. No numbers for Isumi, Nase or Touya. But there was an entry for Waya with an added footnote "Nice dude, willing to do interviews. No good for photos. Great Go."

Intense relief washed over him; his other self knew Waya. Maybe not well, but it appeared they had at least played together, and Hikaru could always get reacquainted with him! As for Isumi and the others, Hikaru fully intended to be a Pro again as soon as the exams came around, so he'd meet all of them again then. And Hikaru truly looked forward to playing Touya Akira at pro level, 'cause, no matter how different the reality, he just couldn't picture Touya being anything other than a Go Pro!

He closed the phone, set it aside and got up to rescue Sai from the shower.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	5. part 5

_Part 5_

OOOO

Hikaru had a bad night that night. A hundred thousand questions kept circling around his head, all demanding answers right NOW. At about 3 am he just gave up. He slipped out of bed and tiptoed around a deeply sleeping Sai on the way to his laptop.

Once there he indulged in looking up anyone he had ever know. Waya and Isumi were doing well, 5- and 4-_dan_ respectively. Nase had passed the Pro Exam 3 years ago and was still a 1-_dan_. Even Fuku had passed the exam. Touya was, quite expectedly, doing great; he had made it to the challenger's position on the Meijin Tournament, earning him an automatic 7-dan status. But oddly enough, he held no titles and the Meijin Tournament was the only one he entered in, it seemed. It did look like Touya really only wanted that title and no other. Out of curiosity Hikaru checked who was the current title holder and got a bit of a shock; it was Touya Kouyo, Touya's dad.

Further internet surfing of Touya Kouyo revealed that the man who had held 5 titles all at one time had never officially retired, but instead had elected to defend only the Meijin title. He had successfully prolonged it for the past 13 years. And Touya Akira had reached the final challenge three times already, but had as yet not been able to beat his dad.

Hikaru was not surprised at all; Touya Meijin was really incredibly strong and he had years of experience on Touya Akira. Hikaru glanced over to where Sai still slept in the darkened room. No, Sai was supposed to be the Meijin's true rival, and Akira was supposed to be Hikaru's. Hikaru knew that by taking Sai out of history, Sai had missed becoming Touya Kouyo's rival, and Hikaru had fallen horribly behind in his rivalry with Touya. But he vowed that he would make up the distance as soon as he possibly could!

OOOO

The next day was pretty hectic. Hikaru quickly realized that Sai had nothing to wear. He couldn't wear Hikaru's stuff 'cause Sai had longer legs and a much narrower waist. He was also too thin, and Hikaru intended to make sure that Sai'd be eating plenty until that underfed look disappeared.

The first order of business was shopping for clothes. Then the first order became second as, when dressing Sai in both Yukatas - one just wasn't warm enough for that time of year - they ran into 'the hair problem'.

It turned out that at the Heian Court, a servant would comb out Sai's hair every morning. This would take an hour and a half, but only if it hadn't been neglected over 3 days, with considerable time spent in the woods. No, now it would need a lot more work, much to Hikaru's shock. Well, that was something Hikaru just wouldn't be having the time for, what with trying to not lose his job! But on the other hand, the only other thing they could do was cut the hair off and that was, to both of them, an 'over my dead body' kind of thing.

In the end Hikaru used pieces of string to tie the untidy hair together at intervals all along its length and he used his laptop to find the address of a hairdresser specialized in traditional and Geisha hairstyles, in a shopping center not too far away, that had lots of clothing outlets too.

Once at the 1980's style shopping mall, Hikaru was very glad he'd brought his camera and the camera manual, because fixing Sai's hair took over three hours. Hikaru spent that time going around the mall, taking as many different pictures as he could, working out how the camera worked. When he scrolled though his results, he did feel he had learned something about photography that day. He just hoped it would be enough to keep his job tomorrow.

OOOO

When he returned to the hairdresser's, he saw Sai was surrounded by ladies of all ages that were, well, doing the fawning fan-girl thing, really. Hikaru felt a cold stab of jealousy; Sai was his! He couldn't stop himself from calling out 'Sai!' The sound drew Sai's attention and once again Hikaru nearly melted when Sai's warm smile was directed at him.

'Hikaru-sama, thou art back! Observe what Mama-san hath created.' Sai turned his head and eased his hair, now perfectly smooth and shiny and caught in a long braid, over his shoulder to pool in his lap, in wide sensuous loops.

At that moment Hikaru was so indescribably glad that he'd never seriously contemplated cutting this beautiful hair. It would have been a sin; the kind that made you end up in hell. And now he felt saved, because Sai looked so good in his purple Yukata with the white firework's burst, his Geta and the long long hair, all neat and fresh, talking animatedly to his adoring fans of the day.

Hikaru had clung to the image of Sai in his Heian outfit, with hat and miles of sleeves for 11 years, but now he saw a different Sai, who not only looked differently but talked differently - oh, help! - and whose Go was different too. Hikaru suddenly found he didn't miss the old Sai quite so much at this instance as he had before. And Hikaru's body, well, it wasn't disappointed in what it saw, no, not at all.

OOOO

After having to shell out more than Hikaru had even spent at a hairdresser's in his life, and having been loaded down with a few hair care products and much advice, Hikaru took Sai clothes shopping.

This turned out to be both a frustrating and entertaining event, as Sai unerring zoomed in on the most colorful and most inappropriate garments in each shop. With childish glee he went around one store's bridesmaids dress department, touching all the widest pure silk A-line strapless gowns. And it wasn't until the sale's clerk realized that Sai was a man that Hikaru took him up one floor to the male section, to prevent them from getting booted out of the store altogether.

Hikaru had never been one for big clothing stores; he was more likely to get everything for the year in one small store. But going around this mall with Sai was a blast, and Hikaru only felt a little guilty when he realized he really enjoyed dressing Sai up, almost like a fashion doll.

Hikaru did manage to behave and he made Sai behave too - even if the Heian noble put on his best pout when being denied to try on one of the campier unisex outfits - and they came away with a complete wardrobe, underclothes, socks, shoes and all, for about ¥20,000.

OOOO

After they arrived back home, Hikaru gave Sai the Go books he'd bought when wandering around the mall. Sai wanted to play, of course, but Hikaru felt he needed to do more work on his job, so he called the local ramen take-away for two meals and went to work while Sai quietly played out the games in the "Go institute Tournament games 1978-1999" book. Hikaru had particularly picked that book out at the mall, because it had the most Kifu in it from any book he had known in his own reality. Doubtlessly that was why Sai had started on it first, over the other two that Hikaru also had bought him.

Hikaru unloaded today's pictures off the camera his laptop and started sorting them. One of the books that the other Hikaru had used most - seeing its dog-eared state - had recommended to take lots of pictures and then keep comparing them for best compositions, best technical - well enough lit, in focus, etc. - and best story content. It also said that the story content really was the most important. So Hikaru set himself the task of learning that. Or at least as much of that as he could; he wasn't dumb enough to suppose that he'd be able to learn all that in a day. But on the upside, his other self had learned it well enough to keep his job for 7 years, so he knew it could be done. For now Hikaru only aimed to know enough so he wouldn't get canned on his first working day!

OOOO

Before he knew it, it was past midnight and Hikaru had a 8 am wake-up call to look forward to. That, combined with last night's lack of sleep made him call it a night.

As he had the day before, Hikaru had made Sai shower again that night. Hikaru himself was a 'quick shower to wake up in the morning' kind of person, so the arrangement made so much sense to him, this way there was to be no bathroom cue in the mornings. It wasn't like Sai was complaining.

In fact, apart from requesting Go games, Sai hadn't asked for anything at all, nor had he refused anything that Hikaru had asked of him so far. As Hikaru lay in his bed, he gave the matter some thought.

Sai the ghost had been much the same as this Sai. He too had only asked to play Go and deferred to Hikaru in everything else. After Sai had disappeared, Hikaru had thought the ghost had acted like that because he was a ghost and was doomed to walk the earth until his mission was fulfilled. A mission that Hikaru had for a long time had thought was achieving the Hand of God, whatever that was.

But a year or so after Sai's departure and after Hikaru had met the Heian ghost in that dream, Hikaru had realized it had more a case of passing on the torch. Since then Hikaru had tried to do just that; show the world Sai's brilliance to the best of Hikaru's abilities.

And it had worked too, or as far as it was possible for it to work. Hikaru did very well in the world of Go, with a high _dan_ level and two titles that he managed to hold on to. But somehow it hadn't been altogether fulfilling, and he felt he could only bring half the message across. Somehow an essential part of him was missing.

Hikaru turned his head and looked over the sleeping bundle on the floor.

He realized he'd made a very chancy bet by nabbing Sai from his own time. But even with the loss of his Go career and all of his Go friends, Hikaru could not feel sorry he had retrieved Sai. He did his best not to show it but his love for Sai, this living Sai, had grown today. And he felt that having him here would fill that hole in his heart quite nicely.

He turned his head and looked at the stark white ceiling that glowed with the little light it reflected from the street lights outside.

Of course losing all that lovely title money had been hard, but if Hikaru was honest with himself, in the original time line, apart from that one helicopter ride, he hadn't actually done anything with the money other than bank it. It wasn't that Hikaru was stingy or miserly, it was just that wherever he went and whatever he did, he felt it would have been more fun if he could have amazed Sai with the experience.

And so he had stopped doing these non-Go things altogether and had concentrated on his Go career instead. And that had been no hardship either; Go was a lot of fun, if a bit serious when playing in the Oteai or the Tournaments. So he'd played a lot with his friends also.

Hikaru knew he tended to have phases; for months he would play Touya every day, just to build up the rivalry and then he would hang out with the former Insei crowd for another few months, haunting shady Go clubs or cheesy bowling alleys and Karaoke clubs. And then there were the Black Days, where he only came out of his room for official Go business and spend his nights reminiscing about the Good Old Days when Sai was still there.

It had been after a Black Days bout lasting for over two weeks, after which Isumi had broken down Hikaru's door - verbally, not actually, thank goodness - that Hikaru had sought some professional help and ended up at that grief counsellor's office.

Going there had helped, if not terribly much. But at the very least Hikaru had realized that he really shouldn't indulge himself with that kind of behavior, and since then he had done his best only to have two or three Black Days in a row.

Hikaru sighed deeply. The ceiling was still white, as it had been an hour ago, or how ever long it had been; he wasn't interested enough in the time to move his head to look at the clock. _Clock. Tick tock, goes the clock. Ping goes the Bell. Ah, what a dumb thought to have_, Hikaru thought. _Go to sleep, stupid!_ Then he felt his quilt shift and being lifted.

'If thou wouldst allow it, my weary self would join thee, for the night is cool and the ground quite cold,' Sai whispered close to Hikaru's ear before slipping under Hikaru's quilt and curling into his side, the long haired head coming to rest comfortably on Hikaru shoulder.

Hikaru for the life of him couldn't think of anything to say, and he found he could do nothing other than wrap the arm that Sai was lying on around the Heian noble's waist and pull him tighter to his side.

As the bed warmed up with the extra body in it, Hikaru's contemplation of the ceiling was discontinued in favor of deep peaceful sleep.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	6. Part 6

_Part 6_

OOOO

There is nothing worse in the world than the alarm clock waking you out of sweet dreams. Well, maybe there was something worse. How about being the person who was underneath a Heian noble who had no clue about modern alarm clocks and who had a fit when one went off, right next to his head.

Hikaru solved the situation by grabbing Sai by his waist and pulling him down with one arm while he killed the alarm with the other. They both lay panting with the sudden exertion for about a minute before Hikaru decided it was time to brave the day.

Thankfully, that was as exciting as that morning got, the rest was just the collection of actions that one usually does to start a day.

OOOO

Hikaru hadn't been able come up with a better plan than just to lock Sai in the apartment while he had to go to work. He'd made sure that Sai had enough to drink and that he knew how to get the sandwiches out of the fridge - and not forget to close the fridge door - and had provided him with enough Go books to keep him busy and out of mischief for the day. All very safe and secure. But it really didn't sit right with Hikaru that he had basically treated Sai as his pet cat - complete with water bowl and cat toys - and he silently promised himself and Sai he'd think of a better solution ASAP.

Work, that day, was a photo reportage of the new head building of the Katsumoto company first and photos and a report on the Kendo competition at Hamaci High School that afternoon. Hikaru had packed a map of Tokyo, his laptop, his camera of course, and a few books that had looked most promising to help him in his job.

As a first job, the Katsumoto building was a very good choice. While Hikaru had mostly photographed people in the mall the day before and therefore was not best prepared for this job, he had hours to get acquainted with the subject and the possibilities of taking some good pics. He had packed a book on the subject and after the doorman had let him in - Hikaru reminded himself to wear his press ID clipped to his jacket at all times from now on - he pretty much had the run of the building - provided he didn't disturb the employees.

All in all he managed to take over a hundred pictures, which he intended to reduce down to the five he had to e-mail in by 1 pm.

The Kendo competition at the high school was great. Hikaru, in his original time line, had not gone to a school that had had a Kendo club. And he had left school altogether at age 15, before ever entering senior high or collage, so he hadn't even had any chance to attend Kendo events as a spectator. It was a new world for him, really.

Kendo was wonderful to watch but a bit hard on the ears, as it involved a lot of shouting. Hikaru, just to be safe, took over 300 pictures. He was very worried that a lot might fail because of the soft lighting, and he wouldn't really be able to tell until he saw the pics properly on his laptop.

As he sat in a cafe two hours later, he realized he had been right to take so many; the lack of light and the fast motions of the contestants had yielded only very few acceptable pictures, and really only one that Hikaru was actually happy with. He sent in those few and hoped for the best.

Hikaru also had to report on this event and he had read the Asagohan Shinbun instruction booklet's section on reporting very carefully. It had warned that all names must be mentioned correctly or people would be angry. And they had to be spelled with the right Kanji, or again, people would be cross. On the positive side, Hikaru had learned from the book that his job was not actually to write a newspaper article - he had been very worried about that, 'cause he'd never been any good at that sort of thing! No, all he had to do was give the writing department as much information on the event as possible, and they'd write it up into a proper story. He did so as well as he could and added a photograph - not having a scanner on hand - of the leaflet with the names of the contestants, with Hikaru's own notes on who had won from whom and by how many points,all dutifully copied off the score board that afternoon.

The last item of the day was reporting back in person to the newspaper's head office before 5:30 pm.

After he'd survived his meeting with his boss, Hikaru took a vacant chair next to the coffee machine in the 'reporter lounge' - a glorified storage room without windows, but with a tap and sink, rickety old fridge, many mismatching chairs, a huge wonky central table and cupboards full of coffee supplies and sweets. He rested his head back against the wall, rocking his chair on its hind legs, waiting for the coffee machine to go 'ding!'

_Survive_ . Yeah, he had survived the meeting, as in he had not been fired outright. He had been yelled at, though. And 'severely reprimanded'. Hikaru was very sure of that part, 'cause the red faced man had yelled that at least seven times at him. Oh H, Hikaru just knew he was going to get fired tomorrow for sure.

'Hey, Shindou!' a cheery voice came from the direction of the door. Hikaru brought his gaze back down from the ceiling - letting his chair land back on all of its four legs with a clank - and looked at the owner of the voice. The man was a chubby bloke, taller than Hikaru himself, about Hikaru's age, with hair just long enough to be able to be messy, which it was, toting an impressive camera with a long lens in his hand and a heavily padded black photo equipment bag on his shoulder. Hikaru's eyes quickly read the man's ID that hung from his neck: _Maeda Sora, Photo Reporter_, with the Asagohan Shinbun logo next to it, just the same as Hikaru's own.

'Hey, Maeda,' Hikaru gave back the same greeting, just to be safe; this dude sounded as if he knew the Hikaru of this time line: better be very careful now.

'Had your chewing out yet?' The question shocked Hikaru; how did this guy know about that? But before Hikaru could think up a good answer, the coffee machine chimed. 'Ah, coffee!' Maeda said and almost made a dive for the machine. The man took two mugs off the dry rack next to the sink and poured two generous cups. He passed one to Hikaru and inhaled the vapors of his own before saying, 'Ah, now that is what a person needs before facing the firing squad.'

Neither Maeda nor Hikaru, had a chance to actually drink anything before the lounge door opened and the Boss, Tanaka-san, stuck his head inside and yelled, 'Maeda! My office! NOW!'

Maeda gave Hikaru a shrugging look, which Hikaru returned, being blocked from his boss' view by Maeda's broad frame and therefore not in danger of getting yelled at for it. The photo reporter parked his undrunk coffee on the kitchenette's counter and quickly left, following his boss to his doom.

Maeda had forgotten to close the door. Hikaru let the boss' yelling at Maede - and the taste of the strong warm coffee - ease his nerves; at least he wasn't the only one who got picked on.

OOOO

Hikaru got home as soon as he could, but it was still 6:30 and after dark when he finally came through the door. The apartment was dark and Hikaru started to worry that Sai might have left somehow. Not that that was possible, of course, 'cause Hikaru was sure he'd locked the apartment properly. He quickly switched on the overhead lights and scanned the room.

He found Sai's eyes as the Heian noble had turned his head in surprise from his position next to the big window that had a nice view of the city. After Sai's initial startled look came one of recognition, and a genuine smile formed on the soft lips. Sai quickly changed position to face Hikaru, by sliding himself around while still in his seated position. He neatly placed both hands out in front of his knees, finger tips touching the ground and bowed deeply while keeping his back perfectly straight.

'I bid thee welcome back to thy abode, Hikaru-sama. I have greatly wished for the effect of thy day that hath been spent and now is no more,' he said gravely. Hikaru got the gist of it - or something of it anyway - and smiled back.

'So glad to be back!' he replied, setting down his bag by the door. And he realized that that was exactly true; never had he been more happy in his life to be back at this apartment, now that Sai was here to greet him.

That night Sai again claimed that the floor was too cold as he slipped into Hikaru's bed with him. Ah, Hikaru thought that he could get used to evenings filled with Go playing and cuddling with his warm living Sai at night. And even better: it was only autumn now, the 'cold floor' excuse would be good until March, at least!

OOOO

The next day was the start of the weekend and Hikaru found he got so many assignments that he'd be gone from the apartment from dawn to past midnight for the next two days. The thought of not being able to spend any significant time with Sai for that long a period put Hikaru in a foul mood early that Saturday morning. But it wasn't until he was about to leave that he realized he wasn't the only one affected. The look of sheer desperation that appeared for only a split second in Sai's amethyst eyes, just before Hikaru was out of the door, worked like an icy shower on Hikaru.

He cursed himself all the way to his first assignment. Keeping Sai locked up inside for days on end, what was he thinking? He vowed then and there to think of a solution.

It was a good thing that Hikaru's first assignment was photographing a mini-carting tournament, 'cause he was no fit company for the rest of the morning.

With much fiddling with time Hikaru found a two hour slot he could spend on Sai that day. It would mean Hikaru would have to do all his photo editing and report-writing at that time as well, but at least it meant he could break Sai out of 'jail' and take him to a park or something. Oh god, that made Sai sound like a pet even more; one that he took out for walkies! _Soon,_ Hikaru vowed, _I'll find a solution, soon!_

OOOO

The solution, or at least the first version of it, came to Hikaru the next Monday night over their Go game, when Hikaru had forgotten to switch his laptop to silent and it had beeped when a new mail had arrived, breaking his concentration. He'd grouched as he had gotten up to shut the thing up, but then had an idea.

He ran a net search to see if it all was still there. It was. It even looked the same: Hikaru's thoughts ran a mile a minute. Sai could at least play real Go instead of recreating old games, as he had been for the past few days. Hikaru would have to teach him how to use it, of course. Could a Heian type brain learn a modern type thing like this? Ghostly Sai had never really learned, but then it wouldn't have done him much good anyway; he wouldn't have been able to touch the keys on the keyboard to make it work. But this Sai could touch things. And Hikaru would just have to teach him how to work it.

Hikaru had gotten straight to it, telling an unwilling Sai that A. they would finish the game later - which seemed to relieve Sai greatly - and B. that inside the laptop lived many people that could all play Go. Now that perked the noble's interest, even if he looked a bit incredulous.

So they got to work and the next day when Hikaru left for work he left his laptop home with Sai.

OOOO

And he promptly realized he'd made a grave mistake; he really needed that laptop for work. He solved the problem that day by going back to the apartment and using it there. But that was never going to work as a permanent solution, as he wouldn't always be close enough to the apartment when on assignment, and he'd had to make Sai break off a game he was in the middle of and Hikaru wasn't sure if he could survive that much pouting ever again.

So that afternoon he got a very cheap but serviceable secondhand PC - there went another ¥20,000. It was installed that night by the nice vendor's terse nephew. Well, friendly or not, the man was quick and had NetGo running for Sai in 20 minutes flat.

That night Hikaru lay looking at the ceiling while worrying. Sai was already fast asleep, curled against Hikaru's side, as he had since that first night that the noble had joined him in his bed. After three nights of cuddling, Hikaru hadn't bothered to make up the guest bed on the floor anymore; Sai hadn't even come near it the few nights before, so why bother.

It was a bit presumptuous of himself, Hikaru realized; Sai might not want to sleep in the same bed with him every night. And he did worry that Sai's, so far, unwavering acquiescence to anything Hikaru wanted, would someday put Sai in a situation where Hikaru demanded something that Sai really didn't want to do, and that he would do it anyway and it would harm him.

That was really the reason Hikaru had let their bed-sharing go no further, even when he desperately wanted it to. So far Sai had not made any move that might indicate he would want to do more than just share warmth, and all Hikaru could do was just accept that at face value. Hikaru had no idea how experienced or inexperienced Sai truly was; Sai the ghost had certainly never talked about his own intimate past to Hikaru's younger self. And Hikaru would not for the world push this Sai into anything he might not be ready for.

Hikaru tightened his arm around Sai's slumbering form and studied the way Sai's eyelashes fluttered just the tiniest bit as the noble dreamed. No, he never wanted Sai to get hurt, not ever.

He looked back at the ceiling. He couldn't stop worrying, though. About the practical things like money and about what he could do to get Sai out of the house during the day.

Money was simple enough; he had to keep his job. 'Simple', right, sure, whatever. Every day after having reported to the Boss at the end of the day, Hikaru had feared for his job and every morning after, he found he hadn't been fired just yet. So far so good. But he had had a reprimand today from the Boss' Boss, 'Big Boss', and that was bad. Luckily it was for an error that Hikaru felt he could avoid in future; he'd gotten two names mixed up, so the wrong one had appeared under the photo of a company president. He'd have to be more careful from now on; he did not ever want to get yelled at by Big Boss ever again. Man, that guy was loud!

Sai shifted in his sleep as Hikaru's chest shook with silent mirth; Big Boss's face had turned a very interesting shade of purple. Hikaru stopped snickering as he remembered how scared he had been that this time he'd get fired for sure. Very sobering thought, that. Well, all he could do was his best and he sure as H would be doing that from now on!

This left the problem of what to do with Sai. Sai the ghost had always been fully satisfied with being allowed to play Go. And yes, this Sai was ecstatic about Go too. But every night so far - even after Hikaru had taught Sai how to turn on the lights at night - Hikaru had come home to a dark apartment, finding Sai sitting by the window looking out over the city with a wistful look on his face. It hurt Hikaru's heart to see it.

Spending the day playing NetGo had helped; this last evening Sai had seemed a lot more, well, perky. And the day after the next it would be Wednesday, and they would be able to spend the day going out together. That should help too.

Hikaru had given serious thought to just taking Sai to a Go club and leaving him there while he worked. He knew that if he told Sai to stay put, the Heian noble would do just that and he'd not wander off on his own. But what if someone convinced Sai it was safe to leave with them?

Of course most people at Go clubs were perfectly decent people, but it really only took the presence of one bad dude for very bad things to happen. And if Hikaru had learned one thing from their trip to the mall the week before, it was that people really noticed Sai's striking appearance, with that hair and that smile. At the mall all the attention had been innocent and rather sweet, but that might not always be the case. No, Hikaru did not feel safe leaving Sai at a Go club by himself.

Well, for now Hikaru decided he'd see if playing NetGo could lift Sai's spirit until Wednesday. Then there'd be two days that could be spent together, which Hikaru sure was looking forward to.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	7. Part 7

_Part 7_

OOOO

Wednesday was marvelous. They spent the sunny morning in one of Tokyo's prettier parks, standing under the maple trees, letting leaves rain on them. Hikaru had brought the magnetic Goban he had bought the day before and they had a game sitting on the grass in the sunshine.

After a light lunch Hikaru gave Sai a choice: more time in the park or a visit to a Go club. Unsurprisingly Sai picked the Go club, once he had understood that there would be human Go players there. Hikaru smiled as he was reminded that Sai had told him the night before that he did not believe the players on NetGo were real at all. No, Sai was convinced they were _Tengu_, bird spirits, who liked to play war games and therefore liked Go.

Hikaru had given the choice of which Go club for him to take Sai to a lot of thought the night before, in his now customary stare-at-the-ceiling meditation. Being a responsible adult was sure cutting into his sleep time. And being with two adults in one bed sure didn't help. But that part at least really worked well against thinking dark thoughts and having bad dreams!

In the end Hikaru had settled for the Touya Go club. It had been the first place he'd thought of; that's where all the good players were. But Touya Akira would be there too.

Hikaru had nearly lost his true rival to Sai in the other time line and had had to work damn hard to get him back. In this one, if Touya played Sai first, the very same thing might happen! No, Hikaru wanted to reclaim his position as Touya's rival.

So, instead of going to another club, Hikaru extracted a solemn promise from Sai that he wouldn't try to play Touya at all today. Sai had looked a bit upset at having to give up a potential playing partner, but Hikaru's assurances that there'd be lots of other great players there seemed to ease the Heian noble's mind.

OOOO

The Touya Go Club was just as Hikaru remembered it. The main room with its slightly stale air and its many tables with just as many Gobans. Then the smaller side room where Sai had first played an 11 years old Touya, while young Touya had thought he had been playing young Hikaru.

In his own time line, they'd been meeting every Monday and every Thursday afternoon, at the very least, for the last ten years. Hikaru suddenly missed that intensely. That drive that they both had. That will to win and show the other they were better. And oh H, all the yelling they used to do at each other; they'd each give as good as they got.

Suddenly Hikaru realized that he must tread carefully from here on in - not exactly his strong suit - because this Touya didn't know him from Adam. Hikaru had seen Touya around people the man didn't know before - really cold - and he knew that Touya didn't make friends easily, if at all.

It was clear Hikaru could not just come up to Touya and behave like he always did; that would chase the reserved man away for sure. No, Hikaru figured that the best way 'in' was by impressing Touya with his Go. With his plan of action - such as it was – set, he paid the fee for Sai and himself, signed them in and stepped further into the main room.

'Scuse me sir,' the receptionist - not Ichikawa; must be her day off - called after them. Hikaru did not let go of Sai's hand - or Sai might run straight up to a Goban without him, he was pulling that hard - as he turned back to the young lady with long red hair.

'Yes?'

'Uhm, you wrote up "7-_dan_" for both your friend and yourself,' she said, waving at the sign-in sheet.

'Yes?'

'Is that Pro level or amateur?' she asked.

_Does it matter?_ Hikaru thought. But he said, 'Amateur,' instead.

'Uh, do you have proof of that?' she pressed, looking more than a little uncomfortable.

Proof? Oh. Yeah. He'd forgotten; amateur rankings that high were only given out by official the Go Institute or Pro players. As an amateur player, you couldn't just give yourself a _dan_ level like that. Dumb. As a Pro he had gauged amateur players before and officially given out a few _dan_ levels.

'Uh,' he said, trying to look innocent. He demonstratively checked his pockets and then added, 'I guess not, sorry.'

'YOU are a 7-_dan_ amateur?' an incredibly familiar voice asked, causing Hikaru to snap his head 'round to the speaker.

A young man stood before him. Slim, just a little taller than himself, with a ruler-straight page-boy hair cut, wearing deep red pants, pink button-up shirt and an argyle wooly sweater with red, white and pink lozenges; Touya.

'Well, I guess the proof is in the game,' Hikaru shrugged.

'So it is,' Touya answered coolly. Then he said, 'This way,' before crisply turning around and heading off to the smaller room.

Hikaru and Sai followed him until Touya stopped in front of that selfsame table they'd played on almost 13 years ago. Touya went around to the side he had before, and motioned Hikaru and Sai to the other side.

'Touya, Akira,' he said, giving a polite bow.

'Shindou, Hikaru,' Hikaru said and bowed. Sai followed suit with a well rehearsed 'Fujiwara, Sai' and a shallow bow, just like Hikaru's.

They all sat down. Touya on the one side of the Goban, Hikaru on the other with Sai to the right of him; almost exactly as it had been all those years ago. 'Almost' yes, but this time Hikaru would be playing this first game together with his own ability; this time Touya would see Hikaru as himself from the word Go!

OOOO

Touya's Go had always been rock solid. And it was so now. This Touya may not have won a title yet, but that was really because he just didn't enter any title tournaments, except for the one that his father still held.

Hikaru had to work hard to keep up. Nothing new there. But that had never meant that Hikaru couldn't win. Why, he had won from Touya before! Granted, not too many times and most of those in the last few years, in the other time line. But Hikaru would definitely count himself as being closing in on Touya's level, and without self-delusion or bragging, either.

And this Touya wasn't too different from the one in the other time line. But he **was** definitely different. Most telling of these differences was a rigidity in the man's play. And a coldness that Hikaru had never felt before. This Touya was a hard, humorless man.

As the game went on, Hikaru also started to feel a certain lack of passion. 'His' Touya had had a very deep seated passion, which would come out in the game almost against Touya's will, making him angry whenever they reviewed those parts of the game and he found his emotions exposed on the board, for all to see. This Touya had apparently conquered that passion, and Hikaru was not so sure that had been a good thing.

Touya's play was incredibly brutal in its efficiency, but still Hikaru could find ways to get around it and gain ground on the board. Hikaru smiled when he looked at Touya's frowning forehead after Hikaru had made yet another unexpected move; frowns were good; they showed that Hikaru was making his opponent work for it.

It ended with a moku and a half between them, in Touya's favor.

'You are good,' Touya said, running his eyes over the board once more.

'Thanks,' Hikaru said while he rubbed his neck and looked away in embarrassment.

'You're not a Pro, are you?'

'Nah.' Hikaru didn't want to too much lying nor give too much information at that point, so he didn't add the 'not yet, again', but he did think it.

Touya was silently studying the board for a while.

'Uh, you wanna, uh, discuss the game?' Hikaru ventured. Touya nodded, his eyes still on the board.

Hikaru felt Sai's hand on his arm, drawing his attention.

'Hikaru-same, humbly begging thy pardon, yon gentleman hath offered my humble self a match. Might I accept?' Hikaru translated that as Sai having been asked to play by the guy sitting one table over. The guy even looked at Hikaru pleadingly. Urg; good look on Sai, not so much on this fellow.

'Of course,' Hikaru said. Then Sai whispered something in his ear and Hikaru turned to Touya, who still had his eyes on the board and a knuckle to his lip in deep contemplation.

'Excuse me for about five minutes,' Hikaru said before getting up and showing Sai to the bathroom.

That phrase had always been their way of announcing a pit stop, complete with Go related pun. (5 is 'go' in Japanese, get it? Bad pun? Oh, yes, really bad! They'd had a good laugh over that one in the other time line.) Hikaru figured he'd reintroduce it straight away.

OOOO

They did not discuss the game at that time, as it turned out, because after the B-break Hikaru had helped settle Sai in for his game against his first non-Hikaru, non-NetGo opponent. Then he didn't leave, because Touya had come over to watch, that knuckle still at his lip, and Hikaru stayed where he was and did the same.

Hikaru actually vaguely remembered knowing the guy Sai was playing. He was a big dude, maybe 50 years old, and Hikaru was pretty much sure the guy was a Pro. And quite possibly Hikaru had even played him in the Oteai; a game of Kifu came to mind with that face attached, but no name to match. Well, didn't matter, the guy wasn't of too low a level for Sai, but not being anywhere in the Heian noble's league, it meant that the guy was heading for a guaranteed defeat. And Hikaru was really going to enjoy seeing Sai take this guy apart.

OOOO

As the game progressed, Hikaru was paying close attention to Sai's elegant moves, both in the strategy he used in the game as well as the way Sai moved to place the stones on the Goban. The strategy just oozed brilliance, making Hikaru's estimate of this Sai's Go rise; he had learned some new things on NetGo, it seemed. And the way Sai's fingertips caressed each stone and eased them in their intended place, did a lot for Hikaru's body too. Possibly a bit too much. But forcing his mind back to thinking about the Go strategy kept things under control nicely.

'He's better than you,' came a whisper, almost in Hikaru's right ear, and it surprised him so much he nearly jumped to the left, stumbling a bit instead. He looked over at Touya, a look of utter affront on his face. Then his look turned angry when he spied that Touya was actually smiling behind that hand he held before his mouth.

'Sorry, didn't mean to startle you,' Touya stage-whispered. Hikaru reluctantly decided to move back a bit, so they could talk more quietly and not disturb the game. He came to stand next to Touya again and they both continued observing the game. 'No worries,' Hikaru whispered.

'Did you hear what I said before?'

'No. Do try not to scare the begeebees outa people, will ya?'

'All right,' Touya whispered, that annoying little smile back in his voice. 'I said: he's better than you.'

Now there was an understatement.

'Yeah, I know.'

'Is he your teacher?'

Hikaru had to think a moment before he answered. _In a 'round about sorta way;_ 'Yeah, he is.'

Oh no, Hikaru thought, now he's gonna want to play Sai and then he'll end up chasing him again and forget all about me! Oh well, at least I got one great equal game out of it.

'So, you wanna play him next?' Hikaru whispered, jumping in with both feet first. He had never been one to wait for the other shoe to drop, not if he couldn't at least shake the tree a bit.

After a long silence Hikaru was surprised to hear Touya say, 'No, not really. I haven't finished playing you yet.'

Hikaru quickly looked over at were Touya had stood but found only an empty place. A quick look around the people that had gathered around the game showed that Touya had walked around the group and was heading for the little self-service coffee corner.

Hikaru's gaze turned back to the game and he was quickly absorbed back into it. It was utterly brilliant. While Sai's opponent was no real challenge to him, the Heian noble was giving the guy a beautifully played game. Sai didn't at any time bully him, nor did he mollycoddle him. No, he gave the guy a game that brought out the best in the guy's Go, and that was something that the other Sai had done for Hikaru many times. And Hikaru realized that this was just the kind of thing he felt he had no hope of ever learning to do. Never mind effectively passing on the legacy of that kind of play; that was purely Sai's unique genius.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	8. Part 8

_Part 8_

_OOOO_

It wasn't until after the guy had resigned and the game was over that Hikaru realized Touya had brought the players tea on a tray and had stayed to watch the rest of the game from where he stood.

As the group started discussing the finished game, Hikaru saw Touya moving away from his spot and coming back to where they had talked before. Hikaru moved back a bit, with Touya following, until they were well out of the circle and Hikaru could lean his butt against a table behind him.

'Your styles are very different.'

_That's our Touya, all of his brain on the job, at all times._ Hikaru shrugged.

'Yours is modern, with a good layer of Shuusaku underneath,' Touya continued in the same reflecting tone.

Hikaru felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward. _Pal, you have no idea._

'His is positively archaic, with some modern Joseki mixed in, but I still see Shuusaku in him, but somehow rawer, less refined.'

_Talk all you want, bud, Sai's the genuine article, he's the one who... Oh? No!_ An icy panic ran up and down Hikaru's spine and he felt his jaw drop open and his eyes try to escape their sockets.

How can Shuusaku be known as a great player in this time line if Hikaru had taken Sai away from his original time, before he became a ghost, and in that way preventing Sai from ever becoming the ghost that had played for Shuusaku over 150 years ago, so Shuusaku'd become a great player? Hikaru felt his breathing choke with the shock of the impossibility of it. A big black well seem to come up to him, wanting to swallow him, when...

'Shindou?' Touya's voice, questioning but firm, a warm hand on his arm. The blackness retreated. The rumbling in his ears coalesced into the fast throbbing of his own heartbeat. The hand guided him to a chair and he sat down heavily. A hand pressed against the back of his neck, pushing. 'Head between your knees,' Touya sounded even firmer. Resisting took too much effort, so Hikaru just let his head be pushed down.

After a minute or so he did start to feel better. And another minute later he slowly lifted his head a little, ready to go down again if the blackness came back, but thankfully it didn't. He lifted his head further, supporting himself with his elbows on his knees, and came face to face with Sai. Sai, who sat in full Seiza on the cold floor in front of him, looking worried.

'Hikaru-sama, art thou unwell?' Sai's eyes appeared huge this close up and they shone like priceless purple gems with fright. His face was pale, a bit paler than normal, making his always rosy lips look almost red. Hikaru reached out a hand and caressed the side of the handsome face.

'You are so beautiful,' Hikaru breathed and slowly he drew the noble face forward and...

'Ahem.'

Hikaru was startled out of his, well whatever that had been, only to look around and see a dozen or so people had gathered 'round. Having fully come back to himself with a shock, Hikaru snatched back his hand, sat up in the chair, scratched the back of his head with his left hand, making sure he stuck out his elbow as far as it would go and dead-panned, 'Ain't you guys've got homes to go to? Can't a guy faint in peace? Geez!'

The trick worked; the group broke up fast enough, unfortunately most of the spectators gave Touya a questioning look, rather than Hikaru. Hey, I'm the one that made a spectacle of myself, not him, Hikaru wanted to say. But he didn't.

'Hikaru-sama?' Sai still sounded worried, so Hikaru turned a reassuring smile towards him. 'Yes?'

'Doest thou not think, mayhaps t'were better if, uh, if we should return home at this time?' Sai looked more than a bit reluctant.

'Don't you want to play some more?' Ah, it had always been such fun to tease Sai. Hikaru really couldn't help enjoying the look of conflict on Sai's face when faced with the loss of as yet unplayed games.

'Ah, verily, my humble heart would swell with the continuation of play, but,' Sai stammered.

'No buts,' Hikaru said indulgently, 'I don't wanna go home yet either, so go play.'

Sai gave him one of those dazzling smiles before bowing haltingly - Sai kept forgetting not to bow so much - hopping up to his feet and quickly moving to join the group from earlier that had moved off a bit.

OOOO

While Sai played three more games with much abandon and a large audience, Hikaru and Touya played a more leisurely game of their own, all by themselves.

It was good game, but not quite of the same level the first one had been. In his Go career Hikaru had found that sometimes the flame just wasn't to be had in a game, no matter how good the players. Oddly enough, Hikaru had never seen that happen to any of Sai's games...

After their game was over and they had discussed it - without any yelling, though Hikaru had been sorely tempted several times, but he didn't want to chance alienating Touya - Touya had served them both tea. It was nearly 7 pm.

'Will you come again tomorrow?' Touya asked after taking a delicate sip of his hot steaming beverage.

'Can't,' Hikaru answered, trying not burn his lips on his tea. Hikaru had set the next day aside to deal with 'the hair problem'.

Mama-san had told him Sai's braid would need to be combed out and the hair washed at least once a week. Hikaru could see from where he was sitting that Sai's braid was getting frizzy around the edges. Mama-san knew her stuff, it seemed. So Hikaru had reserved the whole day for it, just in case he needed it.

'Friday then?' Touya asked, after another sip.

'Can't. Gotta work.' Hikaru tried blowing on the tea. He just couldn't understand how Touya could drink the still nearly boiling stuff!

'Hmm,' Touya drawled and sipped again. 'Maybe Fujiwara could come alone...?' He asked. Hikaru frowned. He really didn't want Sai to spend time with Touya without being there himself; too much chance of them ending up playing together.

'I guess not,' Touya answered his own question. 'Fujiwara is special, isn't he? Something like an idiot savant?'

Hikaru nearly spilled his tea when he sat up suddenly and rapped out, 'Hey, don't call Sai an idiot!'

Touya gave Hikaru's angry face an calculating look, put his tea cup on the table and said, 'Sorry, I meant to say that he has a precious gift, but is quite naive in matters other than Go.' He gave a small inclination of the head, which Hikaru translated as 'no offense intended'. He nodded back 'none taken', relaxed back in his chair and tried his tea again.

'He's just not from around here,' Hikaru said by way of explication.

'And you don't want him to run into any trouble? I can see that.' Touya sipped more tea. 'He's family, right?'

'Yeah,' Hikaru said and then realized that that was the exact truth; Sai had really been family since Hikaru had been 11 years old, blood or no blood, alive or not.

They sat and sipped their cooling tea for a while. Both were facing the backs of the spectators of Sai's game, two tables over. _I should go take a look_, Hikaru thought, but stayed seated.

'I can bring Sai again next Wednesday,' Hikaru proposed.

'I'll be here,' Touya stated.

Then Touya stood up and said, 'I'll get you some 7-_dan_ amateur papers. It should make things easier when you go to other Go clubs.' He walked off before Hikaru could refuse.

The whole having to prove your amateur ranking thing was quite new, or had been in Hikaru's time line, Hikaru was assuming it was the same here. It had started with a sudden inrush of cocky youngsters a few years ago that had seen some kind of a Go drama on TV. They all wanted to play and they all felt they should have high ranks. And they weren't above lying through their teeth about it. So now you could only claim a rank if you had the papers to prove it. The craze had died down quite quickly, but the ranking cards system had stayed.

Hikaru had been dumb enough to forget about it when he had signed Sai and himself in that afternoon as 7-_dans_. But he couldn't say he was sorry about the slip-up, 'cause it had put him directly in Touya's path.

Touya presently returned with a nice lacquer box, which he set down on the table as he seated himself in a chair that already faced in the right direction. Hikaru still sat with his back to the table, rocking his chair a little onto its back legs, gently bumping the table.

From the corner of his eye Hikaru could see Touya neatly laying out the contents of the box onto the table. Forms, pen, stamp.

'Just for Sai,' Hikaru said. Touya just nodded.

'Fujiwara, Sai,' Touya stated, writing on the form. 'Which Kanji for Sai?' he queried. Hikaru told him. 'Address?' Hikaru fished one of his business cards out of his pocket and handed it over. Hikaru looked at Sai's back while Touya wrote out the form and wielded the stamp about. _Paperwork, bleh_, Hikaru thought; the table shook multiple times as the stamp was used to make it all official.

'Here it is,' Touya said and Hikaru looked over at the card Touya was holding out to him. Hikaru righted his chair, put his tea on the table and took the card. 'Fujiwara, Sai. Amateur rank: 7-dan. Address:' Hikaru checked it; correct 'Signed, Touya Akira, Go Pro,' with a neat round Touya Go Club stamp on top. All it needed was a photo of Sai in the photo box in the left hand corner.

'All correct,' Hikaru announced and was about to put it away in his jacket when Touya held out another card. 'And here is yours,' he said.

'But,' Hikaru started, taking the card.

'Consider it an incentive,' Touya said. 'To become a Pro as soon as possible,' he continued, 'for the both of you.'

Hikaru gave him a questioning look; was he serious? The answering look was clear enough; deadly serious.

OOOO

Ceiling time was quite lengthy that night; there was a lot to think about.

They'd gone to bed quite early that night; Sai had been worn out by the busy day. And Hikaru found himself confronted with yet another way this Sai differed from the ghostly one. The ghost had, as far as Hikaru could tell, never run out of energy, nor had he required rest or sleep.

This Sai had been so tired he had fallen asleep during the late dinner they had shared. Hikaru had let the poor guy off on the evening shower, on the grounds that washing his hair tomorrow would probably mean he'd end up taking a full shower anyway. And on the grounds that, now Sai washed every night, he was as clean as any other modern person, and could afford to skip a shower once in a while.

But joining a Sai who was already asleep, did mean that their together-in-bed-before-sleep-time was not very eventful. Well, it did leave Hikaru with more time to think, and that's what he did.

Of course the subject of his thoughts that night was; to go Pro or not to go Pro? And when? And how? The first question was pretty much a no-brainer; they would both go Pro, of course. Hikaru did spend some time weighing pros and cons on this, but inevitably came to back that same conclusion.

The question of 'when' was just as simple; the Pro Exam was only once a year, so that would obviously be when.

'How?' quickly translated into 'how much money?' The Exam was not cheap and Hikaru still owed the Time Team all that money. Oh, bugger, this was a biggie. Possibly a biggie so big that Hikaru would not be able to solve it any time soon. Well, the Pro Exam Prelim was still 9 months away; hopefully something would come up in that time...

OOOO

The next day Hikaru put Mama-san's advice to the test. First there was the combing out of the hair, starting, to Hikaru quite unexpectedly, at the bottom and slowly working his way up. He wasn't even a quarter of the way up before he started to appreciate Mama-san's knowledge of her craft; had he started at the top, he would have had the hair tangled beyond help in no time flat. And now he knew why it had taken over an hour for the servant in the Heian period to do it; it took Hikaru almost three!

After the combing - and a much needed lunch break - came the washing. Hikaru made Sai sit up on a towel on the shower floor, so Hikaru could reach the top of his head more easily. Sai wore a towel; Hikaru expected to get it totally wet, as he just didn't have the hairdressing facilities that Mama-san had at her shop. And Hikaru's finances really didn't allow for Sai to have a visit with the hairdresser's every week, so they just had to make do. He himself wore a t-shirt and boxer shorts with bathroom slippers on his feet, expecting to get splattered, but not doused.

Mama-san had sold him a hair shampoo that Hikaru was to massage into the freshly combed hair, newly wetted from the top down. He had been cautioned not to use too much, because it wasn't cheap. She told him he'd know when to use more; when it stopped producing foam. Then he was to rinse it out three times, to be sure he got everything out. After that he was to wring out the hair carefully by wrapping it in a towel and squeezing it. Then he was to rinse the hair with a mixture he had to make himself from citrusy-smelling crystals and tap water. That rinse should stay in.

The shampooing and rinsing took another hour, and by this time Hikaru was feeling as if his arms would just drop off with fatigue. The whole affair suddenly turned into a watery event when the shower head escaped Hikaru's tired hand and went flying, dowsing both Sai and Hikaru in warm water.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	9. Part 9

_Part 9_

OOOO

After drying Sai's hair, putting in the rinse and drying off themselves - no need for more showering after all that - they both dressed in a Yukata.

Mama-san's instructions were that Sai's hair was supposed to be spread out to dry. Hikaru had suggested the use of a blow dryer, but she had vetoed that, saying that domestic blow dryers could easily burn the hair and that the result would be frizzy at best.

So Hikaru decided to convert the couch into a bed, had Sai, wrapped in his yellow Yukata, lie down with his hair spread out over the edge onto dry towels on the floor. He made a big pot of tea, put whatever else he could think of that they might possibly want for the next few hours near at hand and joined Sai on the bed for a relaxing afternoon of cuddling.

OOOO

As Hikaru, clad in the purple Yukata, crawled next to Sai, he realized that this was actually the first time were neither of them had been asleep, or near to it, while in the bed. Before this the excuse for sharing the bed was a sharing of warmth in the cold night. But now it was not night and they had no such excuse.

Also, since neither needed to sleep at 3 pm, Hikaru realized that this was a great opportunity to ask some questions. And the most burning of these - burning ever since Hikaru had realized he could not ask Sai, the ghost, because it was just after he'd disappeared - was:

'Sai?' Hikaru said, lying on his side next to the Heian noble, who lay on his back.

'Yes, Hikaru-sama?' Darn, Hikaru could still hear the bow in the words, even if Sai didn't - couldn't from that position - bow to him.

'Uh.' Hikaru toyed with a short tuft of Sai's hair. 'Could you tell me a little about your life? I mean before you came here,' he added.

Sai looked up in shock at Hikaru and moved a little away from him as if in fear of him. _Oh, now what?_ Hikaru thought.

'My liege,' Sai started. Hikaru frowned at him. 'Hikaru-sama, I, uh, well,' Sai stammered. Hikaru started to get worried; his question had been nice and innocent hadn't it?

'Whatever it is, I won't be mad, just tell me what the matter is,' he said, trying to sound both commanding and reassuring.

That tactic seemed to work, because Sai's body seemed to relax somewhat as a look of resignation entered the amethyst eyes.

'Yes, Hikaru-sama.' Sai took a deep breath and let it out.

'I was untruthful to thee,' he said. _Untruthful? Sai?_ Hikaru couldn't believe that. And his disbelief was apparently clearly visible because Sai continued by adding, 'My sin was that of omission; I told thee not of my shame.'

Hikaru must still have looked doubtful as Sai spoke on. 'My humble self was disgraced before the Divine Emperor himself. My mere presence is a blot on your divinity and,' this was where Hikaru held up his hand and said, 'Listen to me, Sai, and listen closely; I am **not** a god, and no man or woman you will meet here is divine either, is that understood?' He hadn't meant to sound harsh or angry but he could tell by the scared look on the noble's face that he had done both. Well, as long as it got the message across, it would do.

'Yes, Hikaru-sama,' Sai answered in a small voice. Then Hikaru got a hunch. 'Say, if this is about that other guy accusing you of cheating when you didn't but he did, at that game with the Emperor there?' he asked point blank, and Sai slowly nodded his head. 'Well, don't worry about that. The guy was an ass; you were just stronger at Go than he and he just couldn't take it, the schmuck,' Hikaru pontificated. Sai stayed quiet.

Hikaru, who had hoisted himself up on an elbow while delivering his tirade, flopped back down, put a hand over one of Sai's that lay on his chest and commanded, 'So, tell me about your life.'

For almost a minute Sai didn't say anything, visibly trying to adjust to Hikaru's lack of a bad reaction to his confession. It wasn't until Hikaru made an encouraging gesture that Sai opened his mouth and started to talk.

'My humble self was born into a lower branch of the illustrious Fujiwara family. Until I was 11 summers of age, I was the third son. Never did I meet my brothers or my honorable father, for my brothers had long since moved to posts in the inner court, where my father also resided. They were happy days indeed; I played much Go with my honorable mother and my honorable aunt and my honorable tutor. I'm obliged to say I did very poorly at my studies of Music and Art. My effort, t'was so vile, my tutor begged me give it up.' Hikaru had to smile at that; he could just imagine the tutor with his fingers in his ears while little Sai practiced playing the flute.

'We secreted the fact we whiled away the lesson hours with Go from Mother, lest I be punished and my tutor suffer worse! One illustrious day, Michinaga-sama came to play me. I know not how he knew I could play to any level that might be of interest to him. In my humbleness I tried to play him as best I could.' _I'll bet you did,_ Hikaru thought, _I wish I could've seen you demolish the guy!_

'That winter I was adopted into a higher part of the Fujiwara family and I was tutored in writing and Go only. I never met my new mother, for I was a man then and could not meet females unchaperoned, and my mother was not interested in males or Go.' _Urg, sounds like a cold fish. Wouldn't like to have that as a mother,_ Hikaru thought, shuddering.

'Art thou cold, Hikaru-sama?' Sai's earnest eyes, which had been on the ceiling for most of the story, had moved to Hikaru's face, now giving him a concerned look.

'Nah, not really. Just go on with the story,' he said, waving Sai on. Sai returned his gaze back to the ceiling and continued.

'After some years I became a Go tutor and played ever-increasing numbers of fellow nobles at court. T'was a most agreeable time! Then one illustrious day I was to tutor the Third Prince. And later the Second Prince. And then my humble self was given the most honored task of tutoring the Emperor himself.' Hikaru liked the way the memory of this event made Sai's face light up. Then Hikaru frowned as Sai's face suddenly dropped.

'But, how I know not, it was not to be. Afore I could take up my commission, I was told there would be a deciding game; he who winneth, shall be the tutor, he who loseth shall not. Michinaga-sama, once informed, was very vexed indeed, but not even one as mighty as he could undo the Emperor's decree, and so the match was set.' Sai fell silent for a moment.

'And that's the game where you got cheated,' Hikaru continued for him.

'Verily, t'was that game,' Sai confirmed. Hikaru sighed.

'And then you tried to kill yourself,' he added to the story.

'To save my family's honor and at Michinaga-sama's command, yes,' Sai confirmed. _Hey,_ _hold on a sec, _Hikaru thought.

'Whatsit-sama ordered you to go kill yourself?' Hikaru asked.

'But, of course,' Sai confirmed, sounding a little puzzled at Hikaru's indignation. 'It was my honorable duty to comply,' Sai added.

Well, this was something Hikaru had not known; imagine being ordered to go kill yourself! Hikaru knew of course that Japanese history was full of that sort of thing, but he lived in a society completely free of compulsory suiciding and was darn proud of it!

Hikaru's thundering thoughts must have been visible on his face, because suddenly he felt the feather-soft touch of Sai's long hand on the side of his face. 'Thou must not be vexed; t'were my death that hath brought me thither. And I am most happy here, in heaven's bosom,' Sai said, a sweet smile on his face.

_Heaven's bosom_ ? Did Sai think he was dead? Oh dear, how was he gonna fix that misconception?

'Sai, look, you ain't dead, you get it?' he tried, but that dreamy look didn't seem to go out of the Heian noble's eyes, his hand still on Hikaru's cheek. 'Uh, this is not heaven. C'mon! Does it look like heaven? Do I look like a God?' Hikaru demanded.

'Thou resemblest the most beatific of Deities, and where would such as thou reside but in Heaven?' Sai argued back, quite undaunted.

'Urg,' Hikaru returned, not being able to come up with anything better. He ran his free hand through his hair in exasperation. Then he saw the dreamy look on Sai's face fade into a sad one and he felt the hand drop away from his face.

'However, I fear that my humble self doth not please thee. But yesternoon thou hast called me beautiful, yet thou dost not take up thy servant's sincerest offer.' Sai had looked straight ahead when he said that, but now he turned his head and looked pleadingly, directly in Hikaru's shocked eyes. 'Inform me how I have displeased thee, so that I might make amends!'

Hikaru was more than puzzled now. 'You didn't do anything wrong, and I would take anything that you'd offer me, but really I don't know what you're talking about!' he said.

Sai blinked twice in quick succession, as if that helped process what Hikaru had said. Well, maybe it did, because Sai answered, 'Why, my offer of pillowing with thee.'

This time Hikaru blinked. _Pillowing_? Oh! He suddenly got it. So Sai's joining Hikaru in bed had been more than a wish to share warmth! Hikaru couldn't help smiling broadly. Oh yes, he would just love to _pillow_ with Sai.

This time he figured it was his turn to place hands, and that's what he did after he'd rolled on top of a very - and happily - surprised Sai. Once there he placed a hand to each side of the noble's face, angled his head a little and let their lips connect.

OOOO

Much, much later, Hikaru introduced Sai to playing Go on Kifu paper, since he wasn't about to give up his snugly spot on the bed with Sai in his arms. Playing on Kifu paper was pretty much like playing on a Goban, except you 'placed' the stones with a pencil instead. It was exactly like writing a game up while it was still in progress; stones were placed by writing the number of the hand in the location the stone is placed with a pencil and drawing a circle around the white stones. Whenever stones were removed, Hikaru used the eraser on the other end of the pencil to erase it and then he wrote the stone down as a captured stone at the bottom of the page, with its co-ordinate and move number added, circled or not.

Sai was fascinated. Especially with the numbers used. And with a shock Hikaru realized his own stupidity; he should have realized that this Sai, fresh from the Heian Period, a thousand years ago, would of course not know the western numbering symbols used in all the Go books Hikaru had got him.

He quickly fixed his oversight by writing out the western numbers on the back of the Kifu paper pad. Sai seemed to pick up the new symbols pretty quickly and presently was writing down numbers of 6 figures.

Then Hikaru got another shock; it turned out Sai couldn't actually read any of the text in the Go books either. So far he had made do with just puzzling out the Kifu themselves, trying to learn from them even if he couldn't 'read' the play order at the time.

Sai explained that he could read the Chinese characters, the Kanji, but not the other characters that seem to hold the sentences together. So he could see that a sentence was about 'Go' and 'attack' and 'strategy', but not the way these things related and might be informative to him.

Hikaru quickly tore a Kifu sheet off the pad and started drawing the Hiragana characters that every four year old in Japan knew. He gave their pronunciation and had an absolutely riveted Sai copy each one out a few times.

He left the school lessons at that for the day; Katakana could wait until tomorrow. But he had made a mental note to himself to go raid a bookshop the next day for books on Kanji reading, 'cause the way that modern Japanese used their Kanji was very different from the way the Chinese used theirs - Hikaru knew at least that much - and Sai would need to know a lot more before he'd be reading complicated Japanese Go books any time soon!

Hikaru could kick himself for not thinking of this sooner. Of course ghostly Sai had read modern Japanese just fine, but then he had spend a good 30 years in the late Edo Period, - when Hiragana, Katakana and modern Kanji readings had already existed - and had probably picked it up then. This Sai had not had that opportunity, and he had really come from a period just before the Kanas had come into common use. Even if he was there at the time of their conception, the Kanas had been the female writing system and Sai would not have been privy to that.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	10. Part 10

_Part 10_

OOOO

They settled into a routine over the next few weeks. Hikaru would work most days and Sai would play NetGo and work on his reading at home at that time. Each evening they'd play Go and Hikaru would be surprised by something new Sai had learned that day from his NetGo games. Each night was heaven and Hikaru quickly learned that Sai knew a trick or two from his original period that had definitely **not** become obsolete.

Wednesdays there would be mornings spend in the park, when it wasn't raining or too cold, and afternoons - and sometimes evenings too - spent at the Touya Go club.

Thursdays was 'washing & cuddling day' but as Hikaru got more practiced at hair grooming, there was more time available to do things like go out for ramen in the evenings. Hikaru did decide to keep it a day just for them, and not to let any others encroach into their time together. In his usual agreeable way Sai didn't seem to mind at all.

At the end of the first month that Hikaru had brought Sai to this time line, Hikaru had the unenviable task of informing Kanzou-sensei that he couldn't give the man any money that month. The shopping for clothing, books and PC, not to mention food expenditure for two people had blown away considerably more money than Hikaru's salary had yielded. Hikaru did offer the sensei his emergency fund but was turned down on the grounds that it really wouldn't make much of a dent.

Kanzou-sensei did want answers from Hikaru, on how come Hikaru's life-path had been affected by the removal of one about to die Heian noble one thousand years ago. And Hikaru did agree it was fair to explain to the man how ¥20,000,000 had gone up in smoke.

That night, on the phone, he told him the story of the boy and the ghost. He did it, sitting on the cold floor with his back against wall, keeping his eyes firmly on Sai's sleeping form on the bed, in the dark apartment. The regular movement of Sai's breathing steadied him as he poured out his grief over the death of the person who now lay in deep slumber on his own bed.

Only once he came to the end of his story, did he realize his face was wet and he had been crying for some time. Even the sensei was silent for some minutes, digesting the tale.

'You are a fool, Hikaru-kun,' he said at last. 'You've ruined your life by bringing him here!'

'No, sensei, you are wrong; with him here, I've made it worth living,' Hikaru answered.

OOOO

November turned into December, the coldest December in decades. But both Sai and Hikaru were unaffected by that; they kept each other warm.

Hikaru managed to keep his job, even though his boss yelled at him every day without fail. Hikaru did feel he was getting a better grip on the job itself; he was taking better pictures and his reporting style improved so much he got a positive comment from one of the copy writers about it. And Hikaru took Sai out for sushi to celebrate it - after all, you had to create your own opportunities for parties, no one else would!

Hikaru even had a chance to play Go while at work. He had been sent to interview a CEO of a big local company, for a human interest story. But the poor guy had been so nervous that he only gave one word answers to Hikaru's questions. Then Hikaru spied the Goban that sat in the corner of the man's office and proposed a game.

The man didn't have much of a level of play, so Hikaru just played a veiled version of Shidogo while they talked amicably. The resulting three column article the next day had made Hikaru feel quite proud.

It was actually a pretty big thrill to see the pictures he took one day appearing in the paper the next.

Maeda and some of Hikaru's other colleagues were very friendly and often asked him out for drinks and bowling nights. Even though he always turned them down, he appreciated being invited. But quite frankly, he'd much rather spend the time with Sai.

When they invited him to bowling once again, rather persistently that time, Hikaru told them why he preferred to go home. After some stunned looks from the men, Maeda surprised Hikaru by simply inviting Hikaru to bring Sai along.

Now if the proposition had been for going out drinking, Hikaru would have turned them down flat, but as it was bowling... Who knows, Sai might like that. So, still not quite sure if it was smart to do so, he accepted; they'd meet at the bowling alley in an hour.

Sai at a bowling alley was fun. Apparently, in the Heian Period there had been a not too dissimilar game. So Sai picked up the basic principle quickly enough. All the rest was a matter of teaching him how to use the huge ball with the holes and how the points system worked. And after that it was just a matter of having fun. Which they did, in spades.

OOOO

December turned into January and they had snow every day for three weeks. Sai was absolutely delighted; he said it reminded him of home.

Hikaru had more bad news for Kanzou-sensei; his and Sai's living expenses pretty much ate up Hikaru's entire salary. The rent on his shoe-box apartment was exorbitantly high, but if he didn't reside in the neighborhood, he wouldn't have his job at the paper. Their policy was to hire only locals. So it was a catch twenty-two, with nothing much left over.

Kanzou-sensei seemed to take it well. Or at least, he didn't say something. Actually, he didn't say of anything and Hikaru felt guilted into apologizing some more. The sensei told him to knock it off and hung up the phone.

OOOO

The third Monday of January brought a surprise phone call: Mama-san. Hikaru had long forgotten he had given the nice lady his card on that one visit to her shop. He asked her what he could do for her.

Mama-san replied that they might be able to do each other a favor. She then explained that she, next to the hair business, also ran a small modelling agency for traditional looking Japanese models. She was an agent for both women and men who could carry off wearing the traditional outfits authentically. And now she had commission for a Heian photo shoot, and she really didn't have the right man for that in her portfolio. So would Sai be interested in earning some money?

Hikaru had to sit after hearing that. Sai, a photo model?

Well, he was pretty enough, certainly in Hikaru's eyes, and it wasn't as if he hadn't seen people look at the Heian noble. And then there would be money involved, wouldn't there?

He asked Mama-san and she gave him a quote. Now Hikaru was glad he was sitting down; Sai could make - minus Mama-san's finder's fee and don't forget that taxes would have to be paid - in a day more than Hikaru made in a week.

Hikaru realized he couldn't to say 'no' to that. Even without the big debt hanging over their heads, Hikaru was having trouble making ends meet without dipping into the emergency fund. No, they'd have to take the offer, that much was clear.

OOOO

Of course Sai didn't like it much that he had to give up his day at the Touya Go club to have his hair grooming a day early and then spend the next day in a chilly warehouse studio getting dressed and undressed all day. But Hikaru knew they had no choice and just as he had been against letting Sai go to any Go club by himself, there was no friggin' way he'd let Sai go to a possibly dodgy photo studio all by himself!

And that turned out to be wise decision, because as one of the last tableaus of the day - after several Heian Court scenes and a 'noble commands Samurai' scene, all with bells on - the main photographer wanted Sai to pose for an archery scene, with his hair blowing in the wind and his top hanging down, so basically half naked.

Hikaru's inner little green eyed monster utterly vetoed the idea; that part of Sai was for his eyes only! His more sensible brain vetoed it on the grounds that the temperature in the warehouse was too close to freezing and such scenes had not been discussed beforehand.

Unfortunately Mama-san wasn't at the photo shoot or he would have discussed it with her and she might have mediated, being more familiar with the world of photo shoots. But in the end Hikaru's threat of just walking out the door with Sai right then made the man see sense. The scene was shot with Sai wearing his top properly.

Sai looked amazing standing there on the stage, drawing the arrow back on the bow with confidence, amid blooming potted cherry trees with petals being blown everywhere by the three small wind machines. Behind him was a part-construction of an old style Japanese arch and behind that an enormous canvas depicting the beginnings of a sunset.

Earlier, when Hikaru had helped getting Sai dressed, Sai had told him he had indeed practiced archery when he had been a boy, but then as his Go career took him to the inner court, he's become too busy for the hobby.

Well, the picture came out beautifully, and later Hikaru found Sai had earned a bonus with it as it had been sold on to a liquor company, called Sakura Sake, to be used in their advertisements in Hokaido. Hikaru was happy to take the extra money; finally he'd have some good news for the sensei, when the man would call the week after next!

OOOO

The next Thursday had been another regular 'wash and cuddle' day. The day before they had spent entirely at the Touya Go club, as it had been much too cold to spend any time outdoors.

They had made themselves very cozy that Thursday, with lots of hot tea and lots of sweets, letting Sai's hair dry as much as it could, before Hikaru would braid it later, just before going to bed. Hikaru had surprised himself at how good he had gotten at hair braiding; he could now do the whole length in 15 minutes, where the first attempt had been well over an hour and wonky too boot.

At half past 3, when Sai went to refill the teapot for the third time that afternoon, the door bell rang. Hikaru belted his Yukata and got up to open it. He had impressed upon Sai never to open the door to anyone, a long time ago, just for security. And he wasn't expecting visitors that anyway, so he intended to look through the spy hole before opening the door. But he never got that far.

He startled as he heard a human shriek come from the kitchenette and then the unmistakable sound of crockery shattering. He whirled around and started moving towards the kitchen when he felt two large hands grip his upper arms in an iron grip from behind him.

He struggled hard to get free but the hands did not give a millimeter, while fear raged up his spine; what the H was going on?

'Sai!' he screamed in panic; he had recognized the shriek as being in Sai's voice. And then he felt something touch his neck and all the strength just flowed out of his muscles and left him dangling by the hands on his upper arms. As his legs lost their ability to hold him up, he felt himself being lifted up high enough that his now useless feet left the ground altogether. From the side of his lolling head he could see someone very tall pass by him in quick strides. The figure walked all the way to the far side of the room and then turned around.

The man was huge. Thin and impossibly tall, dark hair and wearing something that Hikaru could only describe as a camp silver Flash Gordon outfit, with red stripes on his shoulders and around his wrists, waist and just under his knees.

'Where's the other one?' the man barked. Hikaru tried to speak, but found himself unable to utter a single sound.

'Here, sir,' came from over by the open doorway to the kitchenette. Hikaru put all his will into turning in that direction and managed to roll his head just enough to get a view. What he saw shocked him. In the doorway stood another impossibly tall man, same silver outfit, also dark hair, but with blue stripes, with his hands out in front of him holding the lolling body of Sai off the floor by his upper arms, in exactly the same way that Hikaru was being held. Sai looked the palest Hikaru had ever seen him; his mouth hung half open, his eyes were rolled back into his head with only the whites showing under his half closed lids. He looked dead.

Hikaru wanted to scream: what have you done to Sai, you monsters? but he couldn't. He tried to struggle, but he couldn't. He tried to cry, but he couldn't. All he could do was hang there and wait for whatever would happen next.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	11. Part 11

_Part 11_

OOOO

Another tall man entered, blond, same outfit with yellow stripes, walking straight up to Red and taking a Manga laser type gun kind of thing from his belt. He carefully checked the settings on it while Hikaru again tried to get his body to obey him.

'Start with him,' Red ordered, indicating Sai. Hikaru redoubled his efforts, with predictable results. _What were they going to do?_ Yellow nodded to his captain and took the two steps over to Blue who held the unmoving Sai out to him, making Sai's legs dangle with the motion. Yellow put the gun to Sai's temple and pressed a button. Hikaru screamed internally as a high pitched whine was heard and Sai started to twitch like he was having an epileptic fit. Yellow only held the button down for some ten seconds, but they really were the longest ten seconds of Hikaru's life.

After releasing the button, Yellow took the nozzle of the gun away from Sai, who appeared to slump down even deeper; his eyes were closed now. Hikaru was extremely relieved when he saw Sai's chest move as he breathed. Other than that, Sai still appeared dead.

Yellow checked the settings on his 'gun' again. 'One thousand exactly,' he reported to his captain. Hikaru could just see Red's face from the corner of his left eye, without moving his head away from his view of Blue with Sai to the right. Red did not look happy. And Hikaru was pretty sure that that would not bode well for either Sai or himself.

'Now him,' Red commanded, indicating Hikaru with his head. Yellow stepped over to Hikaru's right and Hikaru could feel the nozzle touch his temple. The whiny sound started and Hikaru's world exploded in a bright hot all-encompassing pain. It was as if his flesh was being burned off his bones and all he wanted to do was scream and scream and ...

Then the pain stopped and the whine stilled. Hikaru could do nothing other than just hang there limply as Yellow checked his settings and reported, 'Only a few hours.'

'Hmm,' Hikaru heard Red say. 'Take that info to the Chief,' he continued.

'Yes, Sir!' Yellow said and walked out of Hikaru's field of vision.

Hikaru didn't get much time to wonder what would happen next as Yellow returned almost immediately. He walked past Hikaru and the guy who was holding him - whom Hikaru had not been able to see at all - straight up to his superior and reported, 'Chief says normalize.'

Red seemed to be surprised by that. 'Normalize?' he asked. 'Normalize,' Yellow confirmed holding out a surprisingly ordinary looking mania brown envelope for Red to take. Red took it and said, waving his other hand in a universal 'go right ahead' gesture, 'Well then, normalize.'

Yellow nodded and started fiddling with his settings again while he moved back towards Blue and Sai. Hikaru was in an utter panic now; what the H was _normalize_? Were they going to die?

Yellow put the gun against Sai's throat this time and a low rumble started as Sai started twitching again. Hikaru once more started to struggle, but it did no good. He wanted to scream, _don't you hurt him!_ but it was futile. Hikaru was filled with horror as a yellow symbol of a hourglass started to appear just under the nozzle of the gun. It appeared to glow and then to burn, with Sai twitching more violently, his legs being kicked around by the tremors, as if he was a puppet with all its strings broken.

Then the rumble stopped and Sai was still once more. Hikaru panicked again when he couldn't see Sai's chest move and all he could think was: _they've killed him, they've killed him!_ Then Blue let his arms drop slowly and it was as if Sai's lifeless body was spilled out on the floor as if he were a cup of ink, accidentally upturned. Sai's hair flowed to the floor as if in slow motion and Hikaru could do nothing other than follow its decent helplessly.

Then suddenly Yellow appeared by Hikaru's right side and the gun was at his throat before he could even blink. The rumble started up and everything went black.

OOOO

By the splitting headache that assailed him and the wave of nausea that washed over him, Hikaru knew he was still alive. As a reflex he had turned over to prevent throwing up, before he had even registered he'd been lying on his back on the floor. Turning over helped; he now felt would be able to stop his lunch from reappearing.

Suddenly memory returned; Red, Yellow and Blue, ridiculous silver outfits, laser guns, Sai falling to the ground. _Sai!_ Hikaru scrambled up. _Where was Sai?_

He found his unsteady feet, gulped down noisily that which had threatened to come up at the sudden movement and he turned around to look over at the location he had last seen the Heian noble.

Sai lay on the ground, just where Hikaru had seen him fall. Lying there, he reminded Hikaru strongly of that black haired, rosy lipped princess from that fairy tale where she had been laid out to rest in a glass coffin, because her friends could not bear to put her in the cold dark earth. Hikaru knew just how they felt; how could he ever bury his lover when Sai looked like that? Hikaru's heart screamed in sorrow, as his throat produced a sob. How could he live on without Sai? _Not again!_ He couldn't take losing Sai again! He sank to his knees when he realized he couldn't. Just couldn't.

Then, even as tears started to distort his vision, he saw it. Sai's chest moved, he was sure of it. He scrambled up again, and quickly sliding over the laminate's smooth surface, came and sat next to Sai's body. He wiped the tears out of his eyes with a rough swipe of his sleeve and then was elated when he saw the chest rise again, more clearly this time. Sai **was** alive!

Carefully Hikaru touched the still face. It was warm, not feverish and he could feel the eyelashes flutter against the side of his thumb, but the eyes did not open. 'Sai,' he called out softly, caressing the cheek again. 'Sai!' he said a little louder, now getting worried again. He jostled Sai's shoulder with his free hand. 'Sai!' But the eyes still didn't open.

He started to get worried again. Had Sai been injured? Was that why he wasn't waking up? Hikaru pushed the coils of hair that lay around Sai's face and upper body aside and checked his temple where that odd gun had rested first. The area was a little red, but the skin appeared unbroken, nor was there a bruise or anything. Hikaru then slid his hand around Sai's head to check for a bump on the back from the fall, but there was nothing. Moving the hair away from Sai's throat and pulling open the yellow Yukata revealed the general area where the hourglass image had appeared under the gun's nozzle. There was nothing there now; no hourglass, no burn, no bruise. It wasn't even a bit red, or anything; as if nothing had ever happened at all.

So why did Sai not wake up? Hikaru tried again to rouse his lover, but nothing happened. After some minutes he decided Sai would be more comfortable on the bed, so, very carefully, he reached under Sai's legs and shoulders, trying to not get his hands tangled in the loose hair, and lifted him up slowly.

Sai was not light, so Hikaru took it slowly. But he wasn't as heavy as Hikaru would have expected a man that was a little taller than himself to be. Hikaru had seen Sai naked many times now and hadn't failed to see that all his ribs were visible, something that should not be so on a well-fed man. But as Hikaru had gotten used to Sai's physical appearance and his tangibility, Hikaru had chalked the thinness up as being just part of Sai and promptly had forgotten its implication; that of a past of real malnourishment, despite the efforts Hikaru had made to provide good food and plenty of it.

Now that he could actually feel that Sai was too light for his height, he mentallykicked himself and swore to keep a closer eye on Sai's eating habits, 'cause just adding modern dishes and rich chocolate cookies - which Sai adored - to the Heian man's diet had apparently not been enough.

Hikaru very carefully laid him on the couch that was still in its bed form; they hadn't bothered to change it into a couch that morning, since they knew they would be wanting to use it as a bed all day anyway. Just as Hikaru was getting his arm out from under, Sai shuddered and Hikaru was just in time in turning Sai over and clearing his head away from the bed as the poor guy threw up spectacularly onto the laminate floor.

'A thousands pardons, Hikaru-sama, my humble self hath no volition in this!' Sai moaned, sounding aghast, his head still hanging down over the edge of the bed.

As he held strands of Sai's hair away from the floor Hikaru looked down at the mess he was kneeling next to. Most of it had missed him, but not all. Oh, well. Then he tucked the hair back onto the bed and gently touched the back of Sai's neck before getting to his feet. 'No worries; puking just shows you are alive and not dead.' And I'm mighty glad of it, he added in his head as he went to the hall cupboard for a bucket and mop.

OOOO

After the clean-up - the mess in the living room and the broken teapot in the kitchen - Hikaru made fresh tea in the saucepan and tried to talk to Sai about what had happened.

The hot mint tea and the sugared chocolate cookies seemed to revive the Heian noble pretty fast, but after a slight language scuffle it became clear to Hikaru that Sai remembered absolutely nothing of the strange men who had broken into their peaceful home. In fact, in Sai's mind he had become unwell suddenly and had thrown up, nothing more. Sai didn't even remember the teapot shattering, even though he did apologize for it. But then Hikaru already knew that Sai would start apologizing when stuff happened around him that he just didn't understand. So that was no proof of anything at all.

But Hikaru's memory was a as clear as crystal: the tall guys, the silver costumes, the gun, Sai on the floor, the Manila envelope... That was sitting on the coffee table next to him; Hikaru had seen it when he had cleaned the floor, but the thing's significance had only come up as Hikaru had started to think over the events again.

There was not even a question of not opening the thing; if those guys had left it here, it couldn't have been for any other reason than that Hikaru should see the content. At that moment Hikaru hadn't had any suspicion that it might be some type of trap. Later when he looked back, he kicked himself for not being cautious. But, and not for the first time, Hikaru got very lucky and no trap was sprung.

Out of the envelope poured a small avalanche of official papers and photos. Hikaru picked up the top item: a laminated ID card. It read:

Name: _Fujwara, Sai_

Born: _1985/01/09_

Birthplace: _Sendai_

Nationality: _Japanese_

Gender: _male_

There was a long row of numbers at the bottom and a bad picture of Sai at the top right. Hikaru quickly checked through the pile; there was a birth certificate - listing _Fujiwara, Noa_ and _Konoe, Keiko_ as Sai's parents - school graduation papers, inoculation certificates, all with Sai's name on them, all official and absolutely real-looking. There was a class photo with a young uniformed Sai, with his hair in a braid, in the right part of the back row of kids. Wedding party pictures, with an even younger Sai in a suit standing next to some other dolled up kids, looking uncomfortable with his waist length hair hanging loose. There were official family type pictures without Sai in them. Wedding photos of people that might have been Sai's parents and of his grandparents and even his great grandparents. Then Hikaru saw a page that had been typed on an old fashioned type writer; Gramps had had one of those. It showed the family tree of the Fujiwaras of Sendai. On the front side it traced a _Fujiwara, Nao_ (born 1955, Sendai) through many other Fujiwaras to a _Fujiwara, Tadajiro_ (born 1767, Kyoto). On the back side _Fujiwara, Tadajiro_ was traced back to a part of the Fujiwara clan that had been at the Emperor's Court since the 8th Century.

Hikaru's last find was a brand new piece of paper; a doctor's report on _Fujiwara, Sai_. Briefly it said that Sai had had an understandable breakdown after this home and family were destroyed in the tsunami. The doctor recommended rest and finding him (Sai) a useful occupation in his field of interest. And since Sai had shown a talent in Go, a therapy involving Go was highly recommended.

The report - and all the other official papers - was stamped officially and if Hikaru dared, he would be able to use them to give Sai a real modern identity. If he trusted those creepy tall guys not to have given him phonies, that is...

But for the life of him he couldn't think of why they would give Sai all this if it was all fake. It just had to be all real. They had said 'normalize'. Is this what they'd meant? Make Sai a person of this world, just like any other person born in this time? It sure looked like it, didn't it.

Hikaru looked over at Sai on the bed. He'd apparently fallen asleep with his empty cup still in his hand, while Hikaru read the papers. Hikaru got up, reached down to extract the cup gently from Sai's sleeping hand and put it aside. He then spread the quilt over his sleeping lover before finding his laptop for a little research.

OOOO

The documents turned out to be absolutely genuine as far as Hikaru had been able to check. The schools listed in the certificates had all existed - or still did - the Fujiwara family tree seemed real enough, even the doctor who has written that report was real and turned out to be a famous military shrink who specialized in disaster victims. Hikaru had to wonder how those tall dudes had gotten the man to, well, write that report. Or had made him believe he had written that report? Or had forced him to write that report? God, he hoped it hadn't been the latter.

Still, all this evidence did make Hikaru wonder who those guys had been and what had been in it for them. Hikaru fully realized they could easily have killed both of them that afternoon and Red had looked more than willing to order that if that was what he thought would be best. But he hadn't done that, instead he had told Yellow to 'normalize' them, whatever that was. And Yellow had left that envelope... No, Yellow had given the thing to Red, Hikaru remembered seeing that before he got 'buzzed'. So it must have been Red who left the envelope. So leaving it for Hikaru to find was deliberate, then.

And picking Sai's place of birth as Sendai, Hikaru had to concede, was a brilliant move; pure genius if cruel. But if Red and his men were what Hikaru was suspecting they were, then the 2011 earthquake and tsunami was of no more emotional importance to them than the war of 1185 that ended the Heian Period, was to Hikaru; just a part of history.

With the few facts Hikaru had, he concluded that Red and his men had apparently done Sai and Hikaru the favor of letting them live and giving Sai a background, for reasons unknown. It wasn't much, but Hikaru (and Sai) could get on with living with it and that really was the main thing, wasn't it?

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	12. Part 12

_Part 12_

_OOOO_

One evening in February Hikaru got ready to call Kanzou-sensei with the news that there would be some money this month. He hadn't called right after he got the check from the studio, because he was unsure how much would have to be taken off in taxes and also he had hoped that there might have been another shoot as well, generating more money. A subsequent shoot didn't come up and Hikaru had the tax thing worked out, so there was nothing left in the way now of calling.

But when he dialed the sensei's cell phone, he got an unexpected 'disconnected' signal. And the same when he tried the lab's phone. _What?_ Those were the only phone numbers he had. Maybe they had changed them? Hikaru sat forward on the couch, grabbed his laptop from the coffee table and put in on his knees. He opened it and called up the Time Team's ultra boring looking web page; maybe the new number would be on there. Hikaru frowned when he found that the page was down.

All these months being reporter - even for a neighborhood rag like the Shinbun - had taught him one thing; always follow a hunch. He opened a search engine page and started searching: "Time Team", "Kanzou-sensei" and the names of any of the other Time Team members that he could recall. He even street-viewed the industrial park that the Time Team's lab was located on.

There was nothing there. No search yielded results; at the location of where the lab should have been there was as sign for a tofu packaging factory. Well, Hikaru's hunch had been right; it was all gone, as if those people had never existed. _Boy, Red and his guys are really really good_, Hikaru thought. He closed his laptop, putting it back on the corner of the coffee table and sat back on the couch, resting his head against the firm back.

If Red had made Kanzou-sensei and the Time Team disappear, did that mean that Hikaru's debt to them had also disappeared? Now there was a selfish thought! What about the sensei and all his people? Hikaru sighed. Of course he didn't just dismiss their disappearance, but it wasn't as if there was anything at all he could do about it. As things stood, he was the only person that he knew that knew that the Time Team had ever existed, that Kanzou-sensei had ever existed. Even the only one who knew Sai the ghost had ever existed.

Now there was a sobering thought. He was the only one with these memories; basically he remembered things that had never actually happened in this world. It was a scary thought. One that he'd need to think out some more.

'Hikaru-sama?' Sai asked in his 'I'm about to ask you to play' voice. Hikaru smiled and slipped off the couch onto the floor in front of the Goban on the coffee table, which at that moment held a game Sai had been replaying while Hikaru had been working.

'Clear the board; first a round of speed Go,' he announced with relish.

OOOO

February turned into March and brought an abrupt end to winter. But no end came to their bed sharing; even though the official excuse had now become defunct, Hikaru was overjoyed to note.

Now that Kanzou-sensei and the Time Team and with them that huge debt were out of the picture, Hikaru's finances were less of a disaster. Hikaru did his best to try and not spend more per month than he earned, but with having to take Sai every place by taxi and playing fees for the Go club and the extra food and clothing, not to mention the large heating bill that was only partly due to Sai's staying indoors but also because of the unusually harsh winter... Well, with all these things and more besides, Hikaru had had to dip into the emergency fund just a little every month up to then, except for the month that Sai had gotten the job. That check had helped and was still helping, but as there weren't many jobs for someone like Sai - exotic looks yes, but no experience and unwilling (or Hikaru was, anyways) to go bare-chested - so Hikaru couldn't count on that for providing a steady income.

And then there was the Pro exam to consider. In Hikaru's original time line, his family had taken care of the fees and he had never known exactly how expensive taking the exam really was. And now Hikaru had to cough up the fees for two. No way was he making either of them wait; Sai was already 28 years old (give or take a millennium) and Go was the only thing he was any good at, and Hikaru didn't want to wait one minute longer than necessary to start chasing Touya for real. The annoying brat had been needling Hikaru every week about becoming a Pro, over their Wednesday games at the club; Hikaru really couldn't take much more!

But the fee was considerable, and Hikaru just couldn't generate that kind of money when he was paying for costs of living for two as it was. No, this problem was far from solved yet...

OOOO

With the spring taking hold with a vengeance in March, another problem arouse, well, reappeared really. Not that Sai ever complained, of course! But Hikaru wasn't a total dunce and he did see that his lover was suffering in his constant confinement to the apartment.

Sai's time on NetGo had helped him to gain a lot of ground in modern Go. Even Touya had commented on it when watching Sai play the last few weeks. And it had kept Sai happy to be stuck inside while it was freezing outside. But with spring's arrival that had now come to an end; Hikaru kept catching Sai staring out of the window whenever his attention was not on Hikaru or on Go.

When Hikaru couldn't take it anymore, he went to talk to his boss. Over the months Hikaru had been working at the paper, he had found Tanaka-san to be a surprisingly congenial boss. Except around 5 pm when the man had held his daily venting match / break down / voice exercises, or whatever that was. At other times Tanaka-san was a nice and patient man, to whom you could explain a problem and get a wise word back and, within his abilities, he'd help you out gladly.

A very long talk (at 2 pm) yielded some possibilities. Hikaru had already realized he couldn't afford to work fewer hours, so taking an extra afternoon off per week was out. Then Tanaka suggested that he'd trade afternoons for nights. The man was rather enthusiastic about the idea, because they hadn't been able get someone for week nights for years now and Tanaka knew that Big Boss so very much wanted to include more night life into the paper.

Hikaru had to ponder this seriously; so, he'd end up losing some of his evenings with Sai, but he'd get afternoons in the park with Sai in exchange and a small bonus for working the more 'inconvenient' hours. He decided it couldn't hurt to try it out for a month; just in case Hikaru found his body couldn't manage the odd hours he'd be keeping.

Sai was ecstatic. And after one week Hikaru really didn't care that his working hours were utterly screwed up; he'd not give up Sai's happy smile for anything.

OOOO

They quickly set a routine; Monday, Tuesday and Friday afternoons it was Go in the park, sitting on a blanket on the grass. Wednesday it was exploring the nicer bit of Tokyo - like other parks and temples. Hikaru had made the mistake of taking Sai to Shibuya only once. And they'd spend the afternoon and evening at the Touya Go club. Thursdays was still their private day, half of it spent on grooming and the rest on whatever fancy took them.

Hikaru very carefully held on to his privacy of Thursday because - and Hikaru didn't mind this at all - Touya had muscled in on their Go-in-the-park afternoons, the moment the man had found out about them. So by the time it was April, Go-in-the-park had become almost a dependence of the Touya Go Club. People came with Gobans and blankets of their own. Then one chap had volunteered to bring two folding tables and eight folding chairs and pretty soon, Go-in-the-park was an event that ran even when Hikaru and Sai were not there.

And, the most shocking of all to Hikaru, one fine Tuesday afternoon, he found himself not only there with Sai but also working in his capacity of Reporter for the Shinbun. Tanaka-boss had assigned Hikaru to report on this new phenomenon "Go-in-the-park". 'And bring plenty of pics!' the man had ordered, and Hikaru was more than happy to oblige.

OOOO

In June Hikaru found that his finances had decided for him in the matter of him taking the Go exam or not. At that moment he could either comfortably afford the Prelim fees for two people or he could afford the Prelim fee and a good chunk of the Exam fee for only one person. And added to that, he had received the news from Tanaka-boss that his job at the paper could not be guaranteed if he took as many days off as would be necessary for sitting the Prelim and the Pro Exam. And if Hikaru lost his job, what were he and Sai going to be living on between September and the next April, when they'd officially be Pros and could charge for playing Go?

And so Hikaru had to make possibly the hardest decision of his life; he had to give up his dream of going Pro that year. But he knew it wouldn't be more than an extra year's wait; Sai would be a working Pro by next April and then Hikaru could afford to take the Exam himself the August after that.

Yes, the decision was hard, but if he had to do it all over again - taking the time trip to get Sai and losing his high flying Go career and his rivalry with Touya in the process - he would do it all again, in a flash! Having a living, breathing, smiling Sai in his arms every night had filled the gaping wound in his heart for good, and he hadn't had even an felt an inkling of a Black Day coming on ever since he'd brought Sai home.

OOOO

TBC

OOOO


	13. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

Of course a lot of things happened to Hikaru on his way to becoming a successful Pro again. There had been his letting go of his Sai-doesn't-go-anywhere-without-me policy, when it became clear that he wouldn't be able to take Sai to the exam days himself, never mind picking him up afterwards. Luckily Touya had stepped in and offered his services, saying that he's be around the Go institute at the time of the exams anyway, as he had two young pupils of his taking part.

Hikaru had reluctantly agreed. Partly because he'd known Touya of the other time line to be a very responsible and capable person - and he appeared so here - but also because Sai seemed to feel comfortable with the Go Pro and that could not be said of everybody; the former Heian noble was actually quite shy.

So he had let Sai go, after extracting promises from both – each without the other knowing - that they wouldn't play each other. And they both kept their word, Hikaru was sure of this, because Sai couldn't lie convincingly even if his life depended on it. Every game day, Touya would pick Sai up from the apartment - Hikaru having gone to work hours earlier - and take him to the Go Institute. And after the official game there would be games in the open game room downstairs in the building, or Touya would take Sai to his parents' house where Sai would play Touya Kouyo, who was seriously thinking of retiring for real, so he'd have more time for the more private kind of games, like these with Sai.

Hikaru, in the meantime, had started to feel he had gotten the knack of taking usable pictures at any and all occasions, and was really starting to enjoy his job. He especially enjoyed doing an assignment he himself had proposed to his boss; a background piece on local Go Pros, to run as a human interest story behind the event of the current Pro Go Exam.

Once he got the go ahead, the first person he called was Waya, asking him for a interview combined with a game of Go. Waya - who he knew never turned down a game of Go, especially a friendly one with real coffee on the side - readily said 'yes' and so Hikaru got a great interview, a good game and the beginnings of a friendship.

Hikaru - rather slyly - consulted Waya on whom he should ask for an interview next, and Waya - quite predictably - recommended Isumi. Hikaru was grinning all the way back to the boss's office to get clearance for the second interview.

In the end he also interviewed - and played - Ochi, Shinoda-sensei and even Kuwabara-sensei - who just happened to be there the one day Hikaru actually had time to pick up Sai after his game. So he did that interview without clearance, but the boss didn't mind that very much; Hikaru had handed in an in depth interview with the current Honinbou, what could be better?

All in all that summer was pretty marvelous, even if Hikaru did have to miss the Exam.

OOOO

That winter, when not working or 'playing' with Sai, Hikaru decided to write down again all the games he could recall of his time with the other Sai, having lost the last set to the tides of time.

It was funny how 'this Sai' had become just 'Sai' over the year they'd spent together and how 'his Sai', the first Sai, Sai the ghost, had become 'the other Sai'. The differences between the two were not that great; there was the difference in Go levels, but Sai, this Sai, was catching up to modern levels at a staggering pace. He wasn't quite playing Touya Kouyo to a draw yet, but he would very soon!

The two Sais looked differently, but that was largely due to the fact that this Sai either wore modern clothing when going out, or a Yukata when staying in. And he never wore a hat.

The two Sais talked differently, that was true. Even after spending over a year in the modern world, Sai hadn't lost his usage of 'thee' and 'thou'. But then the other Sai's speech had not been very modern either. It had been very formal at the best of times; Hikaru guessed he'd had modified his speech when he had spent those 30 years with Torajiro. It was also there that the other Sai had gained the levels of Go that this Sai had not had when Hikaru had taken him out of his own time.

As for behavior; Sai the ghost had been a ghost and couldn't interact with anybody but Hikaru. And therefore he had not ever learned to interact with the modern world. This Sai was forced to interact with the modern world. From flushing a toilet, to turning on the lights at night, to making tea, learning to read and using the micro wave, Sai could do it all. Well, now anyway.

There were still things in the modern world Sai just couldn't handle. Like using public transport, even with Hikaru's help. The one time Hikaru had taken Sai on the Metro had been an utter disaster, when they had gotten separated and Sai had gotten lost. It resulted in a loss of confidence so bad that Sai wouldn't leave the apartment for two whole sunny days.

No, the two Sais were not the same; they couldn't be, because their lives had taken different paths and a person is molded by his experiences. On the one hand Hikaru was head over heels in love with Sai, but on the other hand the loss of his first Sai was still there, even if it didn't hurt quite so much anymore. It had helped that Hikaru felt he had done something for the other Sai by rescuing him just before his suicide. It also helped that he had accepted there had been nothing more in this time line - or in any other - that he could have done for the other Sai. And the fact that he held Sai in his arms each night, well, that was just unbelievable.

To honor the other Sai, he wrote out all the Kifu he could remember and showed them to Sai, who was in total awe of them; he declared the games against the stronger opponents 'sublime'.

It was after he finished recreating the Kifu collection he had had in the other time line, that Hikaru decided to write down the other Sai's story. Because, really, Hikaru was the only person to remember what a remarkable thing had happened between a boy and a ghost some 12 years ago.

And so the first line he wrote was:  
"Once upon a time, not so long ago at all, a foolish boy met a magnificent ghost."

OOOO

_The End_

_OOOO_


End file.
